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The purpose of this module is to understand why the United States of America came to have the largest known prison population in the world. It introduces students to the subjects of mass incarceration and the carceral state. The course begins by defining these concepts and describing the ways that the US has become an international outlier in terms of criminal justice practice. The course will then explore theories and research from criminology, sociology, and political science that seek to explain how and why mass incarceration came to be. Particular attention will be paid to the relationships between criminal justice, politics, and race relations in the US over the past 50 years. The course will explore the ways that policing, sentencing, and punishment (both incarceration and community supervision) are all related to the carceral state. The primary focus of this course will be on the US, but comparisons will be made to Ireland and other European nations throughout the semester.
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