HIS374H1

Mass Incarceration in the United States

The United States is home to five percent of the world’s population but twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners, including a disproportionate number of African American, Latinx, and Native American people. This vast carceral archipelago is the subject of extensive scholarly and public debate over the history, ethics, and function of incarceration in the United States. In this course, we will explore the rise of contemporary mass incarceration from an interdisciplinary perspective that draws upon history, sociology, and legal studies to reveal the linkages among state-formation, politics, capitalism, and modern punishment as well as community responses to mass incarceration.