Learning Objectives

  1. To grasp the nature and extent of racial disparity in the criminal and juvenile justice systems.
  2. To understand some of the historical roots of that disparity.
  3. To be able to name several ways that race intersects with other key social factors.
  4. To be able to explain the issue of disproportionate minority contact in terms of relative incarceration rates.
  5. To grasp the concept of accumulation of disproportion throughout the justice system process.
  6. To understand some of the issues of race specific to African Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and Latinos in the justice system.
  7. To be capable of discussing the intersection of race, immigration, and the criminal justice system.
  8. To begin to understand the social context in which racial disproportion and mass incarceration have arisen.
  9. To grasp how issues of race in society permeate the boundaries of custody facilities and how they manifest in such facilities.