ANT 384 ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

This course asks students to look at the American criminal justice system through an anthropological lens, considering what criminal justice means for our culture today as well as what it means to consider criminal justice as a culture in and of itself. Course materials will cover the major structural changes of the American criminal justice system over the last century and provide an in-depth view of the social values and cultural “logics” that have made the criminal justice system into what it is today. We will analyze texts from supporters and opponents of current criminal justice systems, with special emphasis on the War on Drugs as a cultural and regulatory construct that has massively influenced criminal justice as we know it today