On 9/28, when talking about supervision
in women's prisons, I mentioned that a female attorney was concerned about the
X-Ray scan that she was subjected to (and whether copies of it were being saved
to a disk). If you're interested in an image of what people can see with some
types of scanners, check out the image here.
I mentioned that there were an increasing number of sites about women in prison,
many of them porn sites and others, such as womenbehindbars.com,
that encourage correspondence and romance with female inmates. (Notice in their
disclaimer about the accuracy of statements.)
I'm making arrangements for people to come in and talk about their jobs and
careers in the corrections field. I also have a webpage
on career information. Also, click on the stopviolence graphic in the upper
right hand corner and go to the School Violence section for information about
youth violence and how to deal with it.
If you liked the prison history material, including the
Race Hoss interview & the prison work songs, click on the link for 'more
information' in the week 3 row. The speaker on 9/21 was Marlyce Nuzum. If she
got you interested in restorative justice, there's more information about it
available through StopViolence.com. Also
worth a look: International
Conference on Penal Abolition.
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Required Reading and
Exercises
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| week 1 |
Introduction & Greeting
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| week 2
9/7
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Welch
Ch 1 - 3
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Paper based on ‘What
Every American Should Know About Criminal Justice’. Read through it and print off
a copy – we will be using this document at several points during the
semester so make sure you have a copy.
Write
a 2 page paper addressing (1) what you thought were the best points they
made (2) what were some point of information you did not know or had not
really thought about before, and (3) what questions or disagreements do
you have with what they say.
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| week 3
9/14
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Welch
Ch 4 - 5 |
Library of Congress - American Memory Project
Click here for more information.
Updated - new links about prison
history, the Race Hoss book and prison work songs
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| week 4
9/21
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Welch
Ch 6 – 7
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For the assignment about exploring prison
survival guides, click
here. |
| week 5
9/28
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Welch
Ch 8 & 10 |
Go
to either (1) “Not
Part of My Sentence” from Amnesty International or (2) “Nowhere
to Hide: Retaliation Against Women in Michigan State Prisons.
Write
a 2 page paper that summarizes the main issues and evidence presented in
either report. Remember to provide a full citation to the article you
read. |
| week 6
10/5
|
Welch
Ch 11
Recommended:
Capital
Punishment in 1998 (click on the 'Acrobat file' for the complete
report)
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The information needed to complete this
assignment can be found on the internet at National
Criminal Justice Reference Service. Click on the
‘Corrections’ section, then ‘Documents’, then look for
‘Prisoners in 1999’ (not midyear 1999).
You will need to open up the .pdf/
Adobe Acrobat version to complete this assignment because the other
versions do not have all the tables. Please be careful to distinguish
between the number, a rate and percents –
make sure you provide the information requested by the questions in the worksheet. |
| week 7
10/12
|
Welch
Ch 12 - 13 |
Prison
Rape.
Go to Stop Prison Rape. Find the
reports containing statistics on how frequently prison rape occurs.
Write
a 2 page paper reviewing the (1) frequency of rape in prison and jail, and
(2) the profile of the most likely victim. Please make sure to provide a
citation to the work you review in this paper.
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| week 8
10/19
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Welch
14 & review for test |
ELECTION & POLICY
PAPER DUE.
Click here for more details
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| week 9
10/26
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Test
on Welch |
Test will be a take home one you'll have a week to
do. I'll hand it out at the end of class & post it here Friday
morning.
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| week 10
11/2
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Welch
Ch 15, Dyer Intro & ch 1 |
Test due, then we will start discussing these chapters. No
Internet assignment. |
| week 11
11/9
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Dyer,
Ch 2 - 3 |
Go
to the National Criminal Justice Reference
Service then click on ‘Corrections’ then ‘Documents’ (or
‘Reports’). Scroll through the list of reports and find one that is at
least 10 pages long and of interest to you.
Write
a 2 page summary of a piece of research. Be sure to include what research question or
questions are addressed, what if any data was gathered (and how), what the
findings were, and what if any policy suggestions are advocated. Be sure
to include the name of the report, the date and the NCJ number.
OPTION
2: Write a 2 page paper about Restorative Justice based on an exploration
of at least two internet sites in the Restorative Justice section of StopViolence.com |
| week 12
11/16
|
Dyer
Ch 4 – 5 |
Explore
the private prison resources in the Crime Pays/ Private Prisons section of
Paulsjusticepage
and find 2 – 3 websites that describe why many prison guards oppose
private prisons. Summarize their concerns and provide appropriate
citations to the information in your paper.
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| week 13
11/23 |
No
class -- Thanksgiving |
| week 14
11/30
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Dyer
6 - 9 |
From your own use of the
internet, find 3 websites that propose helpful solutions to problems
faced by prisons and/or our sentencing policies. List the full address
of the website, the name of the site or organization. In a paragraph,
describe the ideas presented in the website about reform.
You
can only include a website once, even though it may have several sections
(cover these in your description and do not list the sections of the
website as different websites). Do not include any sites referenced in
this syllabus, on paulsjusticepage.com or stopviolence.com. Bring in
enough copies of this assignment to share with everyone in class. |
| Week 15
12/7
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Dyer
10 – 11 & Review for test |
no assignment due |
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FINAL EXAM: 12/14 4:00 - 6:40 PH
203
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