Prisons and Policing in the United States

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Scholars and activists use the concept of the "carceral state" to describe the official, government use of criminalization, surveillance, and mass imprisonment to exercise control over society. This course examines the histories, cultures, politics, and economics of the US carceral state. Reading feminist scholarship from across the disciplines, we will study its genealogy — beginning with the surveillance embedded in the earliest practices of slavery and settler colonialism, tracing its development through the 19th and early 20th centuries, and concluding with the rise of the modern prison industrial complex. We will then focus on contemporary case studies including the "war on drugs," immigrant detention, sex-crime regulation, and police violence. Finally, we will consider alternatives to prisons and policing, as we learn about academic research and activist movements working to end state violence, abolish prisons, defund police, and build opportunities for restorative justice. We will ask and address such questions as: How does the US carceral state function as a tool for social control? What histories, policies, and ideologies underlie the carceral state? How have individuals and organizations worked to reform, transform, or abolish the carceral state? How have media and the arts been used to normalize and/or critique the carceral state? And can we imagine a world without prisons or police?