Teaching

• CCJ-100 Public Safety and Criminal Justice in Global Context--Christopher Stone--Begins by examining the promises that elected leaders around the world commonly make regarding safety and justice and the reforms they promote to fulfill those promises. Next the course examines 10 specific topics that have been the subject of recent reforms in several countries, from community policing and restorative justice to plea bargaining and the prevention of terrorism. These topics encompass several current controversies, including those surrounding racial profiling, mass incarceration, and the policing of political dissent. The course concludes by considering what knowledge and operational capacity a society and government might need to advance safety and justice together. (Spring 2008)
  
  
• CCJ-103 Crime, Justice, and the American Legal System--Anthony Braga--Examines the causes and consequences of the crime problem in America. In recent years, some criminal justice system officials, sensing that the public is losing confidence in their actions, have changed their approach to fighting crime. They have begun to devote more attention and resources to building healthy communities where criminality cannot take root and to making citizens partners rather than adversaries of the criminal justice system. Course covers key actors in the American legal system, such as police, courts, and prisons, and examines the evolving role of these institutions in crime prevention. Particular attention will be paid to drugs, guns, gangs, and other urban crime problems as well as controversial topics in criminal justice, such as racial profiling and the death penalty. (Fall 2007)
  

• CCJ-104 Crime, Community, and Public Policy--Anthony Braga--Examines criminal justice from the perspective of local communities. Focuses on questions of how local communities affect and are affected by crime and criminal justice. A central concern will be the discussion of characteristics of neighborhoods that lead to high rates of criminality and how federal, state, and local policies not directly concerned with crime policy may nonetheless bear on crime rates. The City of Boston will be used as a laboratory in which to study these issues. (Fall 2007)

• CCJ-150 PAC Seminar--Designed for MPPs concentrating in criminal justice, human services, labor, education or health policy. Students are required to write a major paper, the Policy Analysis Exercise (PAE), give several presentations on their research, and provide intellectual support to others in the course. Class sessions will focus on research methodology and substantive policy issues.
  
  

• STM-112 Strategic Management of Regulatory and Enforcement Agencies--Malcolm Sparrow--Considers the distinctive strategic and managerial challenges that surround government’s regulatory functions (as distinct from government’s service provision functions). The course focuses on social regulation rather than on economic regulation and on the management of regulatory agencies rather than on the reform of law. Case studies and lectures will range across multiple regulatory fields, including: policing, environmental protection, occupational health and safety, taxation, customs administration, fraud control, terrorism, and corruption. Current models for “reinvention” (such as those oriented around customer service and process improvement) will be examined in light of the regulatory task. Major sections of the course will examine: strategic management; the role of enforcement; emerging compliance strategies; organizational structure; performance measurement; and information and analytic support. (Spring 2008)
  
  
• HLE-111 Community-Based Strategies to Support Children & Strengthen Families--Julie Wilson--Examines the design and effectiveness of current community-based strategies for supporting at-risk children and strengthening their families. Begins by analyzing community-based strategies in several fields, then explores routine and innovative practices in the agencies and systems with which at-risk families are involved. Draws on recent research on the developmental needs of children and youth and the impact of poverty on well-being as well as other literature and theory to identify the components of best practice for dealing with these children and families. Concludes by assessing several community-based initiatives in Boston and elsewhere, including one focused on the small number of families with extensive involvement in the criminal justice system and another focused on the challenge of protecting children from abuse and neglect. (Fall 2007)
  
  
• ISP-221 Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy--Samantha Power--This course explores the role of human rights in the formulation and conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Students will begin by exploring the concepts of human rights and the U.S. national interest. They will analyze some of the changes in the U.S. human rights rhetoric, policy, and organizational structure in recent decades, probing the links between American decision making and international and nongovernmental influences and institutions. By examining recent cases of U.S. foreign policy making, the class will explore the intersection between human rights, economic and security aims, and domestic politics. The cases, which include U.S. prosecution of the “war on terror” as well as U.S. policy toward Iraq, Rwanda, and the International Criminal Court, will highlight recurring tensions between individual rights and sovereignty, values and interests, exceptionalism and internationalism, and peace and justice. (Fall 2007)
  

Arts & Sciences:

• SOCIOL 266--Social Foundations of Justice--Christopher Winship--Why and how do people come to see a situation as just. This research seminar explores work in sociology, psychology, political science, and philosophy. The goal is for students to launch their own research project. (Spring 2008)
  
  
• WOMGEN 1165--Intimacy and Violence--Karen Pomeroy Flood--This course addresses the problem of violence in intimate relationships from a sociological and feminist perspective. Activist-inspired and community-connected. Close attention paid to the way in which violence against women constitutes a specific form of structured gender inequality. Special emphasis on the intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality in the experience and representation of intimate violence. Topics include domestic violence, rape, incest, and pornography. Causes, consequences, and patterns will be examined. (Fall 2007)
  
  
• ECON 1816--Race in America--Roland Fryer--Examines the causes and consequences of racial inequality in America and evaluates the efficacy of various market and non-market solutions.Topics include: the racial achievement gap in education, the impact of crack cocaine on inner cities, racial differences in health, crime and punishment, labor market discrimination, social interactions and the effects of peer groups, affirmative action, and more. (Fall 2007)
  

Divinity School:

• Public Christianity: Poverty, AIDS, and Criminal Justice: Seminar--Matthew Myer Boulton--A critical, constructive examination of theological resources within Christian traditions for interpreting and responding to pressing public crises, using three case studies -- extreme poverty, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and U.S. criminal justice -- to frame our reading and research. (Fall 2007)

Graduate School of Education:

• Legal and Ethical Issues in Child Advocacy--Jennifer Ann Murphy--The purpose of this course is to delineate the interface between legal and law-related issues, professional ethical issues in counseling, child advocacy and education, and psychosocial problems in childhood and adolescence, including issues specific to the criminal, family, and juvenile justice systems. The influence of social-cognitive, attachment, ego developmental, and psychodynamic theories will be explored, and the application of research and theory in psychology and education will be examined in terms of the framing of legal and ethical decision-making. The relationship between legal, ethical, and psychological concepts and dilemmas will be explored. The state of knowledge about outcomes for children’s emotional and social health, learning, and development will be addressed in the context of the risks and protections that juvenile, family, and criminal legal intervention brings to the lives of children, both as victims and as offenders. Topics to be considered include child maltreatment, parental rights and fitness, divorce and custody, children and adolescents as status offenders, delinquents, and young offenders. The course will be presented from the perspective of a child and family education and counseling advocate working with the justice systems directly or through school or community-based organizations. (Spring 2008)

School of Public Health:

• American Violence: The Intersection Between Home and Street--Deborah Prothrow-Stith--This course will use an interdisciplinary approach to explore risk factors and remedies for the high occurrence of violence in the United States. Special emphasis will be given to the public health approach to violence prevention, and to successes of public health work in addressing youth and community violence over the past two decades. Course sessions will trace the links between exposure to violence in childhood and involvement in interpersonal and street-based violence later in life. Early warning signs and dynamics of violence in dating, common-law, marriage and terminated relationships will be reviewed, as will juvenile offenses and responses by the criminal justice and health care sectors. Students interested in doing clinical work, policy and program design, or research are encouraged to use this course as a foundation. Supplemented by insights from practioners, this course will provide a rich context for understanding policy and programmatic challenges in addressing the high incidence of violence in this country. (Spring 2008)
  
  
• The Practice of Preventing Intimate Partner Violence--Jay Silverman--This course will present students with the state of knowledge in the field of intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention (i.e., epidemiology of adolescent and adult perpetration and victimization, prevention program models and legal frameworks, evaluations of prevention programs, approaches to research), and how individuals with academic public health training can work with practitioners and policy makers to improve IPV prevention in a range of practice areas. Students will be encouraged to integrate provided academic and programmatic knowledge in the pursuit of public health research and practice related to IPV prevention. Guest speakers will describe a range of prevention program models and policies, and provide insight into the need for and utility of related public health research. (Fall 2007)
  

Law School:

• Capital Punishment in America--Carol Steiker--This course considers the legal, political, and social implications of the practice of capital punishment in America, with an emphasis on contemporary legal issues. The course will frame contemporary questions by considering some historical perspectives on the use of the death penalty in America and by delving into the moral philosophical debate about the justice of capital punishment as a state practice. It will explore in detail the intricate constitutional doctrines developed by the Supreme Court in the three decades since the Court "constitutionalized" capital punishment in the early 1970's. Doctrinal topics to be covered include the role of aggravating and mitigating factors in guiding the sentencer's decision to impose life or death; challenges to the arbitrary and/or racially discriminatory application of the death penalty; the ineligibility of juveniles and persons with mental retardation for capital punishment, limits on the exclusion and inclusion of jurors in ca pital trials; allocation of authority between judges and juries in capital sentencing; and the scope of federal habeas review of death sentences, among other topics. The course will also consider the role of executive clemency and pardons in the administration of capital punishment. Finally, the course will conclude by again widening the lens and addressing the anomalous and "exceptional" status of American retention of capital punishment in the developed West and the proper role of international practices and legal materials on the future of the practice of capital punishment in America. (Spring 2008)
  
  
• Federal Criminal Law--William Stuntz--This course explores the law of federal crimes. That law is mostly ignored in first-year criminal law courses, but it plays a prominent role in contemporary debates about crime policy. Consider a few examples: The law of white-collar crime barely existed a generation ago; it now occupies a large and important place in the world of criminal practice, and it is almost entirely a federal-law field. The same is true of the law of racketeering. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, together with the state guidelines they have inspired, have revolutionized criminal sentencing; the current judicial revision of those guidelines may produce a second sentencing revolution. The federal government plays a large and still evolving role in drug law and enforcement. Last but not least, the battle against terrorism has consumed enormous resources--yet has also produced surprisingly few prosecutions and convictions. The bottom line is clear: federal criminal law is the battleground for the most basic issues of crime policy. In surveying that battleground, the course will proceed at two levels. One is doctrinal, and fairly technical: we will cover in some detail the scope of federal criminal jurisdiction and the intricacies of RICO, money laundering, and mail fraud doctrine. The other is more open-ended and policy-oriented. We will discuss the merits of federalizing white-collar crime, and of using the federal justice system to attack different sorts of organized crime: old-style Mafia families, contemporary drug rings, and terrorist organizations. The goal is to give students a working knowledge of the basic doctrinal structure of federal criminal law, while at the same time exploring in some depth several larger issues concerning how the government deals with crime. (Fall 2007)
  
  
• Policing and the Criminal Process: Seminar--David Sklansky--How much have law enforcement agencies, and the demands placed on them, changed since the "criminal procedure revolution" of the 1960s? What implications, if any, should those changes have for how we regulate the police? This seminar will examine contemporary control of American policing, by constitutional law and otherwise. Topics of discussion will include the future of the exclusionary rule, civil liability for police misconduct, and other judicially managed tools of police accountability; new policing strategies and their implications for democratic control of the police; developments in internal discipline and civilian oversight of police departments; the dynamics and the limits of budgetary and political control of law enforcement; changes in the demographics and occupational culture of police forces; the role of rank-and-file officers in police reform; the challenges and the opportunities posed by the spread of private policing; and the strains placed on policing and its oversight by the threat of terrorism. (Spring 2008)
  
  
• International Criminal Justice: War Crimes Tribunals--Gary J. Bass--This is a critical study of the politics, ethics and law of international criminal justice. The course asks if international law can help to prevent or moderate war, how international criminal law shapes and is shaped by world politics, whether there is a moral basis for victor's justice, why states choose to pursue or abandon the prosecution of war criminals, whether prosecutions of war criminals might interfere with peacemaking and democratization efforts, and whether war crimes trials can build national reconciliation. Cases include the Constantinople trials after the Armenian genocide, the Leipzig trials after World War I, Nuremberg, Tokyo, the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the United Nations tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the trial of Saddam Hussein, and the International Criminal Court. (Spring 2008)
  
  
• Prison Law and Policy--Sharon Dolovich--Courses in criminal law tend to focus on the "front end" of the criminal justice process: investigation, prosecution, and verdict. But for those offenders sentenced to prison, the trial process is only the preamble to an extended period in the custody of the state. In this class, we'll be focusing on the law and policy of incarceration, the "back end" of the criminal justice system. Broadly put, the central questions to be addressed are these: As a legal matter, what obligations (whether constitutional or statutory) does the state have toward those it incarcerates? And given legal limits, how should we run the prisons? These questions are particularly urgent given the current size of the nation's prison population; as of 2006, there were almost 2.2 million people in America's prisons and jails, more prisoners per capita than any other country in the world. Topics to be covered include: the history of prisoners' rights litigation; the scope of prisoners' constitutional rights; inmate access to the courts; the prison disciplinary process; conditions of confinement (including supermax prisons); medical care; the problem of prison rape, private prisons; and issues arising from the incarceration of women. (Fall 2007)