CLS 320: Social Stratification and Crime

This course uses theory and empirical study to examine how inequalities embedded within social structures affect individuals and processes involved in the definition, construction and responses to crime, victimization and the law. Emphasis will be placed on socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity and gender as factors. This course will look at rates of violence, disparities in punishments and treatment within the legal system and the overrepresentation of poor and minority groups in the American criminal justice system. Finally, we will examine how barriers to equality are maintained and how scholars and others propose these barriers can be eliminated or reduced.