Sociology 4084

The Criminal Justice System

Fall 2006

Professor Sara Steen

Email address: steen@colorado.edu

Office information: Ketchum 205; 303-735-6658

Office hours: Thursdays 12:30-2:30, or by appointment

Teaching Assistant Devon Thacker

Email address: devon.thacker@colorado.edu

Office information: Ketchum 409

Office hours: Wednesdays 9-11, or by appointment

“Crime control strategies and criminological ideas are not adopted because they are known to solve problems. The evidence runs out well before their effects can be known with certainty. They are adopted and they succeed because they characterize problems and identify solutions in ways that fit with the dominant culture and the power structure upon which it rests.”

--David Garland, 2001: 26

“For the first time in history, the number of inmates in American prisons and jails has exceeded 2 million… The rate of incarceration in the United States, 702 per 100,000 residents, continues to be the highest in the world.”

--The Sentencing Project, April 6, 2003

“Punishment can be seen to reflect our understanding and our values, and is therefore regulated by standards people apply every day for what is and what is not possible to do to others. So the question for each of us is: would it be in accordance with my general set of values to live in a state which represented me in this particular way?... Belonging to Western industrialized culture, I am also represented by what happens in the USA. It is in a way also a part of me that cultural relatives find it acceptable to do such things to so many fellow citizens.”

--Nils Christie, 1994: 185-6

"Prison is not about punishment, and it's not about rehabilitation.

Prison is about keeping bad folks away from good folks."

-- GA house minority leader Bob Irvin, 1/16/98 in Atlanta Journal Constitution

Course objectives

You should leave this course with a deeper understanding about how the criminal justice system in the United States works. More importantly, you should leave recognizing that the way a society responds to crime is a choice, and that any particular strategy rests upon certain assumptions about the causes of crime and the purposes of responding to crime. We will talk about how our society has responded to crime historically, and how it is responding to crime at present. We will talk specifically about recent trends such as a reliance on plea-bargaining to resolve criminal cases, the War on Drugs, “tough on crime” policies such as Three Strikes laws, and the privatization of the prison industry. My hope is that you will leave this course more willing and better able to assess policy choices we make as a society about how to respond to crime.

Course meetings

This class is scheduled to meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30-10:20. I expect you to attend class regularly and to participate in class discussions. Tardiness is unacceptable, as it disrupts the learning of others who arrive on time. If you are habitually tardy, I will ask you to stop coming to class unless you can arrive on time.

As you can undoubtedly see, I am expecting a baby this semester. I have planned the semester so that I will teach through Thanksgiving, at which point Dr. Anjie Rosga will step in for me. Dr. Rosga is an expert on policing, and the final three weeks of the course will be devoted to that topic. After Thanksgiving (or after the baby is born, whichever comes first), you should address communications about the class to Devon Thacker, the teaching assistant. She will handle the logistics of the course when I am gone. You are welcome to also communicate with me, but I will not be available for office hours and will only be checking email very occasionally (probably once a week).

Course readings

The following books are available at the University Bookstore:

Boyes-Watson, Carolyn. 2003. Crime and Justice: A Casebook Approach.

Hallinan, Joseph T. 2001. Going Up the River.

The bookstore was unable to obtain the following book until mid-semester, so please try to find it from another source (e.g., Amazon.com).

Cole, David. 1999. No Equal Justice.

Additional readings are available at the course WebCT website, which is located at https://webct.colorado.edu.

Course requirements

Readings: Assigned readings must be completed by class time on the day listed in the syllabus. The amount of reading ranges from 60-100 pages per week.

Field observation project and reflection paper: Each of you will participate in a project outside of the classroom in which you observe people working in the juvenile or criminal justice system. I will provide a number of choices of possible sites for these observations. You must provide me with a statement of when and where you will conduct your observation no later than October 10^th. You may not use a personal experience with the criminal justice system as your observation. After you have done your observations, you will be required to write a 3-5 page reflection paper about your experience in which you describe what you observed and reflect on how your observation enhanced your understanding of course material.

Exams: There will be three exams in this course. Each exam will include multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions.

Reading groups: Early in the semester, Devon and I will put you into groups of approximately five students within your discussion (recitation) sections in which you will work throughout the semester. On five occasions, you will come to discussion sections having completed a writing assignment handed out the week before. Each group member will be responsible for providing unique information, which you will then share with your group. As a group, you will then be asked to complete an in-class worksheet based on your readings. Both the individual and the group assignments will be graded, and you may drop the lowest of your five reading group grades (each will count at 5% of your total grade).

Participation: You will receive a grade for your participation in class. Given the goals of the course, you must be present and actively participating in the class to be successful. On seven unannounced occasions throughout the semester, I will take attendance in lecture in the form of an in-class assignment of some sort. This will constitute 5% of your total grade. You can have two absences without negatively affecting your grade; after your second absence, each additional absence counts as 1% of your total grade. The remaining 10% of your participation grade will come from your active participation in your discussion (recitation) sections.

Grading

Your grade for this course will be based on satisfactory completion of the required tasks; you decide for yourself how hard you want to work. The grade you earn does not depend on how well you do in comparison to others in the class. Your grade will be based on the following components:

Field observation reflection paper 15%

Reading group assignments (4 of 5) 20%

Exam 1 10%

Exam 2 25%

Exam 3 15%

Class participation 15%

If you are particularly concerned about your grade in this class for any reason (athletics, scholarships, academic probation, etc.), we STRONGLY advise that you schedule an appointment to talk with one of us towards the middle of the semester so that we can touch base about your grades thus far and talk about strategies for improving your performance if you are not doing as well as you need to be. Please don’t wait until the end of the semester when it will be too late for us to work with you on improving your performance.

Course policies

Email policy: If you contact me via email, you must put “4084” in the subject line so that I can identify student emails and respond to them in a timely manner. If you do not use this subject line, I cannot guarantee a response to your email. Approximately 80% of the email I receive is spam, and your email may be inadvertently deleted if I cannot identify it by the subject line. In general, you can expect email responses within 48 hours of receipt. Note that I do not check email in the evenings or on weekends, so an email sent on Friday may not receive a response until Tuesday. If you need an urgent response, you should talk to me after class and/or check the course website (WebCT) to see if what you need is available there.

Please do not email me with questions about your grade. University policy prohibits the discussion of student grades via email. This policy is intended to protect you; your grade is a private matter, and email is a public forum. The first place to go if you have questions about your grade in the course is to WebCT—we will post all of your grades there so that you have an easy way to keep track of your progress in the course. If you wish to discuss your grade, please come to office hours or make an appointment.

Late policy: All assignments must be submitted on time and in person. I will neither accept nor acknowledge assignments submitted via email, left in my mailbox, or placed under my office door. If you need additional time to complete an assignment, you must email Professor Steen no later than 5 p.m. on the day before the assignment is due. If you do this, I am generally willing to grant up to two additional days for you to complete an assignment. You may not use this policy for reading group assignments (they must be handed in on the due date to receive credit).

This late policy is our way of recognizing that life sometimes gets in the way of schoolwork. We know this, and you know this, which means that we (all of us) can find ways to provide you with “margins”—leeway to allow for life to happen. Note that this is primarily your responsibility—you should be sure to provide yourself with margins to allow for things that might get in the way of turning your paper in on time. For example, we all know that printers sometimes don’t work 15 minutes before class. Creating a margin for yourself means that you will recognize this and will not put yourself in the position of printing your paper 15 minutes before class. Do not come to class with your paper on a disk and an explanation about a broken printer—we will not accept your paper if you do this.

Honor code: All students are expected to adhere to the University of Colorado’s Honor Code. Please familiarize yourself with the provisions of the Honor Code. Note that ignorance regarding its provisions does not excuse a violation. If you have any questions about the Honor Code, please see me.

Special accommodations for… Religious holidays: The University of Colorado at Boulder has legal and moral obligations to accommodate all students who must be absent from classes or miss scheduled exams in order to observe religious holidays. If you will be absent from class for a religious observance, you must notify me of any scheduling conflicts in writing by September 12th.

…Learning disabilities: If you have specific physical, psychiatric, or learning disabilities and require accommodations, please submit to me a letter from Disability Services by September 12^th so that your needs may be addressed. Disability Services is located in Willard 322, and information is available at www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices.

…Student athletes: If you are on an athletic team and will be missing classes, please get me a letter by September 12^th. It is your responsibility to look ahead on the syllabus and deal with any conflicts (e.g., scheduled assignments) prior to the conflicting activity. Merely providing a letter to me does not mean that you have dealt with these conflicts—you are responsible for working with us to develop a plan to cover any absences.

Daily Schedule of Topics and Assignments

Date	Topic	Assigned reading	Assignments due
August 29	Course introduction	Syllabus
August 31	What is the crime problem?	Currie, pp. 3-11; Bennett, pp. 11-17 (WebCT)
September 5	Justice and the criminal justice system	Boyes-Watson Chs. 1-3
September 7
September 12		Boyes-Watson Chs. 4-6	Special accommodations letters due
September 14
September 19	Special topic 1: Inequalities in the criminal justice system	Cole, pp. 1-100
September 21
September 26		Cole, pp. 100-208
September 28
October 3
October 5	EXAM 1
October 10	The judicial process	Boyes-Watson Chs. 10-12
October 12			Paragraph: plan for field observation site
October 17	Corrections and punishment	Boyes-Watson Chs. 13-15
October 19
October 24
October 26	Hand back and discuss exam
October 31	Special topic 2: Prisons and contemporary punishment	Hallinan pp. xi-100
November 2
November 7		Hallinan pp. 101-224
November 9			Field observation paper
November 14
November 16	EXAM 2
November 21	NO CLASS
November 23	NO CLASS
November 28	Policing and the law	Boyes-Watson Chs. 7-9
November 30
December 5	Special topic 3: Police use of force	To be announced
December 7
December 12		To be announced
December 14
December 16, 10:30am – 1:00pm	EXAM 3