Courses

Mass incarceration has resulted in an unprecedented growth in prison populations in our contemporary world. Yet the prison’s central place in the punishment of criminal acts is a relatively recent one. This course examines the emergence of the modern prison as a global institution of punishment and power. It examines changing penal cultures across time and space, considering similarities and differences between the different institutions that have been used to incarcerate and confine, ranging from early modern debtors’ prisons and bedwells to detention camps, penal colonies, and most recently, the “mega-prison”. The course takes a global historical approach to examine the political, cultural, and economic factors that have shaped shifts in penal techniques and criminological theory from the sixteenth century to the neoliberal present day. Students will consider how different forms of punishment have impacted communities unequally, and how this has contributed to the deep inequities that mark most societies. The course will also engage with key theorists of punishment, from the intellectual architects of the modern prison to those involved in the prison abolition movement. In doing so, the course introduces students to the key debates in punishment and carceral studies from a historical perspective.