CRJ 355

Introduction to Corrections

Professor Jess Maghan - Email: jmaghan@gmail.com

This is the first advanced undergraduate course in corrections. We will analyze the history of correctional practices --- institutional and field services. We will be concerned with juvenile and adult correctional services at the local, state, and federal levels, including the distinction between jails and prisons and the function of corrections within the criminal justice system.

The sessions will include lecture, discussion, and films when appropriate. The major requirement for this course is a fifteen (15) page research paper into any appropriate topic in institutional corrections. Thirty suggested topics are appended. You are welcome to submit a copy of your own choosing for review. You will need to schedule your time carefully.

Submit a short outline with at least eight (8) references by Tuesday, February 06 2001. Two short paragraphs will suffice. You will receive it back on Tuesday, February 15, 2001 with an approval to proceed or perhaps some suggestions to modify it. Then get to work right away. You will have until Tuesday, April 17, 2001. Late papers will lose one letter grade per day.

Course Requirements:

People have to show up in life: your attendance pattern (tardiness/absenteeism) will be factored into your final academic grade determination. Warning donot exceed five absentee days in this course semester. Do NOT bring food into this classroom (abstinence from food and drink for approximately sixty minutes is nourishing to the body and soul...especially in a corrections course concentrating on behavioral modification and control).

There are three mandatory requirements every student must meet. They are the course examinations; a term paper developed from the attached list of topics; and a final examination. The required text to be used in this course is, Fox and Stinchcomb, Introduction to Corrections, (5th Edition), Prentice Hall Publishers, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Other readings will be assigned in readily available texts and via class handouts. NOTE: YOU MUST HAVE THE COURSE TEXTBOOK AND A STANDARD DICTIONARY IN CLASS WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES.

The Glossary:

Spur

The development of a glossary of words and terms discovered in this class can be submitted for a consideration of up to five points on the final course grade. The objective of this glossary development assignment is to enrich your capabilities for analyzing sources of information and to develop their ability for making necessary distinctions of definitions within the "text" and "context" of the course content and subsets of subject matter.

In the development of a criminal justice glossary, I refer you also to the nine field-specific dictionaries in the UIC Library: Criminal Justice Vocabulary; the Criminal Justice Dictionary; Crime Dictionary; Dictionary of American Penology; Dictionary of Modern Sociology; Black's Law Dictionary; Macmillan Dictionary of Psychology; Encyclopedia of World Crime Dictionary; The Early-Intervention Dictionary; The Police Dictionary and Encyclopedia; The Law Enforcement Vocabulary; Definitions in Convergence Conflict and Alterative Vocabularies.

SUGGESTED RESEARCH PAPER TOPICS

1. John Howard (18th Century Reform)

2. Jeremy Bentham (The Panopticon)

3. John Augustus (Origins of Probation in the U.S.)

4. Alexis de Tocqueville (19th Century U.S. Prisons)

5. The Auburn - Pennsylvania Prison System Debate

6. Elizabeth Gurney Fry (Early 20th Century Reform in NY)

7. In the Belly of the Beast (Jack Henry Abbott) - Institutional Violence

8. Women in Prison (Esther Heffernan "Society of Captives")

9. Behavior Modification (High Impact Incarceration, Boot Camps)

10. Radical Criminology (Jack Young, Dan Taylor, Richard Quinney)

11. The Philosophy of Punishment (A Historical Perspective)

12. Corrections...A Residual Agency of Social Control

13. Comparative Corrections (International Models)

14. Race and Justice (Sentencing and Prison Populations)

15. The Detention Process (Disintegration, Disorientation, and Degradation)

16. The "Sociology of Incarceration" (Managing the Underclass)

17. The Civil Rights of Incarcerated Persons

18. Prison Architecture: "We Shape Our Buildings and Afterwards Our Buildings Shape Us"

19. Correctional Health Issues: Contagious Diseases in Correctional Facilities (Tuberculosis, STDs, Hepatitis, Blood Pathogens/HIV/AIDS)

20. The Correction Officer: The "Other" Prisoner

21. Private Prisons (The Prisons-for-Profit Incarceration Industry)

22. Alternatives to Incarceration (21st Century Penology)

23. Decarceration Strategies

24. Anchors to Humane Incarceration: 1st, 4th, 8th & 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution

25. The "Failure" Grid - Construct of the Convict Worldview

26. Death Penalty - Deterrent or Incentive?

27. Rape and Sexual Assault in Prison

28. Managing Dilemma: Prison Management, Administration and Leadership

29. Drug Treatment Program: Incompatible Regimes?

30. Politics of Prisons - Corrections and the "Executive and Legislative Branches"

Reading Schedule