Sociology of deviance, theories of punishment, sociology of penitentiary and alternative measure’s system. The second part of the course will focus on penal treatment of poverty, with particular attention to the relationship between poverty, prison and forced labor.
Students attending classes will be evaluated on the basis of their active participation in the course and seminar.
Non-attending students will be required to study the following texts:
E. SANTORO, Carcere e società liberale, II edizione, Giappichelli, Torino 2004 (pp. 372).
G. CAPUTO, Carcere senza fabbrica: Povertà, lavoro forzato e welfare, Quaderni dell'Altro diritto, Pisa, Pacini, 2020.
Learning Objectives
Understanding
Knowledge about the sociology of deviance, theories of punishment, the sociology of the penitentiary and alternative measures’ system, the relationship between social and criminal policies in late modernity.
Skills: Ability to analyze the relationship between law and social reality and the one between law and rhetoric in the criminal field, through the study of social impact of criminal law and the analysis of penal law as a way of managing social problems. Through the study of law as a ‘social question', students will be stimulated to historicize the offence-punishment link, to connect critically the problems of the political-social order with the theories of deviance and punishment
Expected results.
Sociological researches on specific subjects will help students to get the ability to adopt a sociological perspective in the study of law.
Prerequisites
Students must have passed the exams of General Constitutional Law, Private Law I. It’s recommended to have passed the exams of Philosophy of law, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure
Teaching Methods
Teaching through lectures, seminars, presentations and papers on topics of interest. The course material will be accessible via Moodle platform
Further information
Type of Assessment
Attending students.
Learning will be verified through two oral presentations and a final written paper.
Oral tests: mid-term presentation about a theoretical topic and discussion in seminars; final presentation of a socio-legal research and discussion in seminars.
Written test: final paper about the topics of the two oral presentations.
Final exam: for attending students, it will consist in a discussion on a paper.
The evaluation will be based on the quality of the written paper, on the oral presentation and on the participation to the discussions.
Non-attending students.
Oral exam with at least one question on each of the two recommended books. Students will be required to show knowledge of the main sociological theories of deviance and punishment, as well as the ability to critically relate them to socio-legal idealtypes.
Course program
The course is divided into two parts.
In the first part the different legal-sociological theories about the functions of the punishing system will be introduced, with special attention to the different kinds of deviance and penitentiary institutions.
The second part will be devoted to the analysis of the historico-sociological evolution of the relationship between the governance of poverty, criminal repression and prison labour. The various theoretical and normative Italian models of penitentiary and forced labor will be presented: from the “liberal” one to the most recent “penal welfare”.
There will follow a seminar part involving the reading of texts, socio-juridical research, drafting of papers and their collective discussion.
Initially, students can choose to study some topics more in depth, including: the different interpretations of the evolution of punishing systems; social control; the psychological and anthropological foundations of punishment; the sociology of prison life and ‘total institutions'; the process of degradation of defendants and convicts; the relationship between health and prison; feminist criminology; penal populism; governance of urban safety; the representation of deviance in the media; the transition from the welfare state to the ‘penal state'; the relationship between poverty and crime; the criminalization of migrants; critical criminology.
Each student will present and discuss the selected topic during the mid-term seminar.
Afterwards, the students will be asked to conduct a socio-legal research – related to discussed theoretical topic - and to present its results during the seminar at the end of the course.
In order to attend seminars, a good knowledge of English is recommended.