Social and Legal History 20th Century

HIUS 7656

Social and Legal History 20th Century

"Crime and Punishment in American History"

Jessica Lowe

Since the Founding, Americans have been obsessed with crime.  Also since that time, American leaders and policy-makers have struggled with what it means to punish in a free society, and how to balance justice, deterrence, rehabilitation, and mercy.  This course will trace these debates, with a particular emphasis on the rise of incarceration, its tangled relationship to American race and racism, and finally the explosion and collapse of the carceral state at the beginning of the twenty-first century. 

Requirements:  Students must attend seminars, participate in discussion, lead at least one discussion over the course of the semester, and write ten two-page response papers.  Participation is 35%; papers account for the other 65% of the grade.  Readings include:  Steven Wilf, Law's Imagined Republic: Popular Politics and Criminal Justice in Revolutionary America; Bruce Mann, Republic of Debtors; Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Prison; David Rothman, Discovery of the Asylum; Edward Ayers, Vengeance and Justice; Douglas Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name; George Fisher, Plea Bargaining’s Triumph;  Michael Willrich, City of Courts; Leslie Reagan, When Abortion was a Crime; Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow; and Bill Stuntz, The Collapse of American Criminal Justice.