AAST 360 Mass Incarceration and Its Roots (3)

Between 1972 and 2012, the U.S. prison population increased nearly sevenfold to an astonishing 2.23 million people, and the policies behind these numbers have disproportionately impacted African Americans and Latinos. Given these trends, mass incarceration is emerging as this generation’s civil rights issue. The imperative to confront the injustice in the criminal punishment system is as real as it is immediate, for maintaining the status quo carries devastating consequences: the growth of economic inequalities, the erosion of the democratic process, persistent gendered and racialized violence, and the reification of insidious racial stereotypes. This course uses an interdisciplinary framework to examine the major contours of the problem: its precursors, origins, consequences, and solutions.
Course Frequency: Spring