BloomsburgUniversity: Department of Sociology, Social Work & Criminal Justice

Course Syllabus PENOLOGY (43-310) Fall 2005

Faculty:Dr. Leo Barrile; Office: 2112 McCormick; Telephone: 389-4239

Office Hours: Monday & Wednesday 2:00-3:00; Tuesday & Thursday 2:00-3:30.

e-mail: lbarrile CJ Website:

Description and Goals:

Penology is the study of punishment, primarily the state's policy, strategy and implementation of punishments for law breakers. The prison, for more than a century in the United States, has been the dominant form of institutionalized punishment. Within the state's criminal justice system; there are over 2 million people in U.S. prisons and jails. Most of those who are released will return to the correctional system. Despite its dominance most law breakers are handled extramurally, with fines, probation, and other sentences alternative to prison.

This course will investigate various models of criminal punishment, sentencing, and sentence reduction, including imprisonment, the death penalty, rehabilitation, economism, shaming, structured sentencing, reintegration, restorative justice and victim reconciliation. This course will study the prison as a social system; the interpersonal dynamics within it and the socioeconomic and political relationships outside it. This course will look at effectiveness and consequences of various sentencing strategies, the politics an economics that fuel them and the public attitudes that affect and are affected by them.

Required Books:

Clemens Bartollas 2002. Invitation to Corrections. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Ted Conover, 2000. New Jack:Guarding Sing Sing. New York: Random House.

Joseph T. Hallinan, 2001. Going Up the River: Travels in a Prison Nation. New York: Random House.

K.C. Carceral. 2004. Behind A Convict’s Eyes, BelmontCA: Wadsworth.

Student's Responsibilities and Basis for Grading:

(l) Read and be prepared to discuss assigned readings and lectures.

(2) One paper (100 points). You will be assigned to one of five groups, paper areas are listed on next page.Guidelines for the paper will be distributed in class. Late papers will be assessed a 5 point reduction per day. Papers should be handed in to the professor in class. Those left in professor’s box or office will be assessed an additional 5 point reduction.

(3) One term test (100 points)

(4) One cumulative final exam valued at (135 points).

(5) Quizzes/Short Assignments/Class Projects (8-12) (100 points). Three lowest quiz grades will be dropped.

No makeups for work will be given without a written reason that is accepted by the professor. Final letter grade is determined by the following: A=400 points; B=360; C=315; D=260. plusses or minuses may be issued for grades falling between these points. Student participation in class discussion may be considered in calculating the final grade.

TOPICAL OUTLINE:

Topic I - A Brief History of Punishment and Societal Strategies for Dealing with Criminals.

(a) Punishment, Sentencing, Politics, Culture and Prisons. Prisons and the Crime Rate.

(b)Strategies of Punishment in various Social Contexts (Bartollas, chps.2 & 4)

(c)The Rise of the Prison as the Preeminent Form of Punishment. Sentencing and Prisons. Prisons and the Crime Rate. (Bartollas, chp. 3)

Topic II. The Present Structure of Penal Institutions aka Correctional Institutions or Corrections. Politics, economics, and structure.

(a)Prisons, Prisoners, and Populations (Bartollas, chp. 10; chp. 18; chp. 19)

(b)The Causes and Consequences of the Expansion of Prisons in the United States (Hallinan, Going up the River)

(c)Jails—Concrete Ghettos? (Bartollas, chp. 9)

Group 1 Papers on Sentencing, Expansion of Prison, Privatization.

Topic III. Running a Prison: Hacks, Jacks, Shrinks and “The Man.”

(a)Types of Management Systems in Prison (Bartollas, chp. 11)

(b)Guards, occupational personalities and the subculture of control.

(Conover, New Jack)

Group 2 Papers on Power and Control in Prison. Supermax prisons. Political prisoners, torture in prison, e.g. Abu Ghraib.

Topic IV. Inmate Subculture

(a) Male Prisoners (Bartollas, chp. 14) (K.C. Carceral, Behind a Convict’s Eyes)

(b)Riots (Bartollas, chps. 12 & 20)

(c)Female Prisoners (Bartollas, chp. 15)

(d)Juvenile Prisoners (Bartollas, chp. 16)

Group 3 Papers on Gangs in Prison, Riots, Prison Race Relations, Rape in Prison, Crime in Prison.

Topic V. The Death Penalty and Death Row (Bartollas, chp. 17)

Group 4 Papers on Capital Punishment.

Topic VI. Release from Prison and Alternatives to Incarceration.

(a) Probation and Parole and the state of re-entry programs (Bartollas, chps. 6 & 8)

(b) Halfway Houses (Bartollas, chps. 7 & 9)

(c) Decarceration, abolition

Group 5 Papers on Released Prisoners, Treatment Programs, Victim-Offender Reconciliation Programs, Abolition movement, Group Homes, Intermediate Sanctions, Shock Incarceration.