Theoretical Perspectives on Punishment CRIM 345 (3)

Examines theories of punishment in Western societies, with a particular emphasis on the 'revisionist' literature i.e. that which explains punishment techniques in terms of social-structural relationships rather than the rhetoric of reformers. The course also examines competing explanations of the demise of corporal punishment and the ascendence of incarceration at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, the advent of various kinds of 'community corrections' through the twentieth century, and changes in punishment and social control with the advent of 'risk society'. Prerequisite: CRIM 101.