GOVT 3141

Last Updated

  • Schedule of Classes - October 4, 2025 7:07PM EDT

GOVT 3141
Prisons

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

The United States stands alone among Western, industrialized countries with its persistent, high rates of incarceration, long sentences, and continued use of the death penalty. This American exceptionalism -- the turn to mass incarceration -- has been fostered by the use of sharply-delineated categories that define vast numbers of people as outlaws and others as law-abiding. These categories that are based on ideas of personal responsibility and assumptions about race are modified somewhat by a liberal commitment to human rights. Our purpose in this course is to understand how such ideas have taken root and to locate the consequences of these ideas for policy and practice.


Distribution Requirements (D-AG, SBA-AG), (SSC-AS)

Exploratory Studies (AFAREA)

Last 4 Terms Offered 2025SU, 2025WI, 2024SU, 2024WI

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Syllabi: none

  •   Winter Session.  Combined with: AMST 3141

  • 4 Credits Stdnt Opt

  •  1007 GOVT 3141   LEC 001

  •  
    • Jan 2 - Jan 16, 2026

    • Staff

  • Instruction Mode: Distance Learning-Asynchronous

    This Winter Session class is offered by the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions. For details visit: https://sce.cornell.edu/.