SOC212

This course provides an analysis of the criminal justice system with a particular focus on the centrality of crime policy to the making of race in the United States. Specifically, the course examines the war on drugs. Students consider how changes to laws and policies transformed the way we punish crime as a country, and their disproportionate impact on Black and Brown communities. Students also explore reformist and abolitionist social movements and their efforts to redress these disparities in the criminal justice system through policy change. Recommended background: PLTC 115.