HIS 465 - Race, Crime, and Punishment in Historical Perspective (3)

This course will mostly be a multidisciplinary historical examination on the dynamics of the American criminal justice system at the local, state, and federal levels. We will examine historical and contemporary studies that provide arguments about the connections between race, class, gender, poverty, urban communities, and the criminal justice system. More specifically, our readings and discussions will provide perspectives through which to understand not only how and why acts of police violence, questionable court proceedings, and unjust sentences routinely take place but also why and how they are often sanctioned by society at large. What historical and contemporary circumstances explain, and are necessarily connected to, the acquittal or lack of charges of the officers involved in the killings of Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Freddy Gray, Breonna Taylor, and so many others? What historical and contemporary circumstances explain the re-occurrence of police violence against communities of color? Such questions suggest recurring patterns that point to ways in which society and its institutions (re)produce representations and practices that often take race, age, class, and gender as markers of expected civic and/or criminal behavior.