CJ 304 - Race, Ethnicity, and Gender In Criminal Justice

Credits: 5
LEC hours per week: 5
This course explores how racial, ethnic, and gender interplay in the criminal justice system with special focus on how biases and stereotypes stemming from political rhetoric and media influence normative concepts of justice and equity in the criminal justice process. Fundamental consequences of racism, legally sanctioned segregation, discrimination, racial profiling, hate crimes, jury nullification, prosecution, and incarceration are analyzed with detail given to the application of existing law and the need for restructure to necessitate social justice. Implicit bias, racial disparities of arrest rates, conviction, and sentencing are also discussed. This course is for students enrolled in the Bachelor of Applied Science Program.
Course Outcomes:

Describe how historical factors and the impact of slavery and restrictive immigration laws influence society.
Discuss definitions and pertinent terminology relating to race, ethnicity, sex, and gender.
Identify economic, political, and sociological factors that have influenced the over-representation of certain minorities in the criminal justice system.
Compare and contrast diversity and multicultural issues in the policing, judicial, correctional, and juvenile justice segments of the criminal justice system.
Examine the social construction of masculinity and femininity and how it is expressed through criminal behavior, treatment, and punishment.
Understand how ethnicity, race, and gender information is gathered and analyzed in criminal justice statistics.
Analyze the effects of systemic/structural, institutional, and individual racism, xenophobia, and sexism influence the criminal justice system.

Course Topics:

Jim Crow laws
Racial and gender stereotypes
Profiling
Pretext stops
Capital Punishment
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments

Course Attribute(s): None