CRIMINOLOGY
(AS) {CRIM}  

Undergraduate Courses  

100. (SOCI233) Criminology. (C) Society Sector. All classes. Laufer, Sherman.

This introductory course examines the multi-disciplinary science of law-making, law-breaking, and law-enforcing.  It reviews theories and data predicting where, when, by whom and against whom crimes happen.  It also addresses the prevention of different offense types by different kinds of offenders against different kinds of people.  Police, courts, prisons, and other institutions are critically examined as both preventing and causing crime.  This course meets the general distribution requirement.

200. (SOCI200) Criminal Justice. (C) Society Sector. All classes. Sherman.

This course examines the causes and consequences of the millions of decisions made annually by the legally empowered decision-makers of the criminal justice system.  The course places students in the role of one decision-maker after another, emphasizing the decisions they would make with all the scientific research on these decisions at their disposal.  Research on 15 different decision-makers is examined, from crime victims to police, prosecutors, jurors, judges, wardens, probation and parole officers.  Using a medical model of evidence-based practice, the course asks students to consider how the results of criminal justice could more effectively reduce the sum of human misery.

300. Violence: Causes and Prevention. (C) Gilligan.

This class considers what is known about the causes and prevention of violence.  Perspectives reviewed include biological, social, psychiatric and historical factors affecting violence.  Prevention strategies include social, educational, community and justice system interventions.

SM 410. (CRIM610, SOCI410) Research Seminar in Experiments in Restorative Justice. (C) Strang. Prerequisite(s): Any statistics or research methods courses leading to knowledge of SPSS.

This seminar focuses on the ongoing data collection of Penn's Jerry Lee Program of Randomized Controlled Trials in Restorative Justice, the largest program of field experiments in the history of criminology.  Since 1995, this research program has randomly assigned over 3400 victims and offenders to either conventional justice or restorative conferences of victims, offenders and their families, in Canberra (Australia), London, Northumbria and Thames Valley (all in England).  The offenders have all been willing to acknowledge their guilt to their victims (or the community), and to try to repair the harm they have caused.  Key questions to be answered by the research program include the effects of restorative conferences on the future crime rates of offenders and victims, on the mental health and medical condition of both, and on the changes over time in these dimensions of the life course of both victims and offenders.

SM 411. (CRIM611, SOCI411) Field Observations in Criminal Courts. (A) Staff.

The course will serve as an introduction both to qualitative research and to an understanding of the routine workings of the courts in Philadelphia.  After a brief discussion of the theoretical underpinnings and practical techniques of ethnography, students will undertake supervised field projects leading to the writing of 5000 words long, examined research reports about different aspects of the social organization of the courthouse and court room.

Graduate Courses  

SM 600. (SOCI680) Pro-Seminar in Criminology. (A) Staff.

This course explores the basic scope, mission and methods of the science of criminology.  The course proceeds to cover the current state of theory, research, and accomplishments in both knowledge and policy about criminality and criminal events.  Students will read widely and report to the seminar on their readings, as well as assessing key readings and central ideas for their potential guidance of future research.  The course focuses primarily on criminology of criminal events, including law-making and law-braking.  The criminology of reactions to crime is covered in the second semester pro-seminar in criminal justice, CRIM 601.

SM 601. (SOCI681) Pro-Seminar in Criminal Justice. (B) Staff. Prerequisite(s): CRIM 600.

A wide-ranging introduction to theory and research on responses to crime under the rubric of criminal law.  Theories of deterrence, procedural justice, reintegrative shaming, defiance and other interactions between legal sanctions and legal conduct will be examined in light of the most recent research. Issues of discrimination, disparity, and fairness in the operation of criminal law will be considered with evidence from around the world.  Patterns, causes, and consequences of legal sanctioning patterns will be systematically documented, and major gaps in knowledge will be identified.

602. Evidence-Based Sentencing. (A) Strang.

This course examines the application of social science research to the process of sentencing convicted criminals.  The course begins by reviewing the varieties of sentencing systems, emphasizing the range of sentencing guidelines frameworks within the US and Common Law nations.  It then describes how these principles work in practice, in the actions and perspectives of prosecution, defense counsel, pre-sentence investigations by probation services, and judicial rulings.  The course then considers the research evidence for the relative effectiveness of different kinds of sentencing and rehabilitation programs, with emphasis on direct comparisons of prison versus community-based corrections.  The concept of an "evidence-based sentence plan" is then developed, and each student is assigned the task of writing such a plan based on a particular combination of prior criminal record and current offense.  Each student will present the plan in a mock courtroom, with direct examination by a defense counsel and cross-examination by a prosecutor.

SM 603. Research Methods/Crime Analysis Project. (B) Staff.

This course provides an overview of social science research methods employed by criminologists in public agencies, with an emphasis on diagnostic and analytic tools, experimental design and quasi-experimental evaluation methods. In lieu of a Masters thesis, M.S. students pursue a semester-long project, using crime analysis and research skills (along with tools such as crime mapping) to address a specific crime problem.  Student projects culminate with an oral presentation before the class, as well as submission of a written product.

SM 604. Criminology in Practice. (E) Robinson.

This weekly seminar explores how criminal justice professionals can bring research-based approaches into crime-related policy and practice.  Current and former government policymakers and criminal justice system practitioners regularly visit the class as guest lecturers and to engage in disussions with students.  This is a "capstone" course spread across both semesters and taught by the M.S.  Program Director.

615. (CRIM400, CRIM415) Fatal Violence in the United States. (B) Sorenson.

The purpose of this course is to provide students with an understanding of patterns of fatal violence in the United States and population approaches to violence and violence prevention.  The course will focus on policies and regulations related to the manufacture and use of the primary mechanism by which the fatalities occur, that is, firearms, as well as the central aspects of the social context in which firearms exist and within which firearm policy is made.

634. Evidence-Based Crime Prevention. (A) Sherman.

This course examines the use of evidence in the practice of crime prevention. Uses include the diagnosis of crime patterns and problems, research on how to rereduce crime, implementation of crime preventation policies, value-added estimates of policy effects, evaluation of cost-effectiveness, and revision of policies, all integrated into the DRIVER model of evidence-based practice. Primary emphasis is placed on scientific methods and results to date of field tests of the effects of policies intended to prevent crime.  Policies are examined in nine field settings: communities, families, schools, labor markets, places, police departments, courts, incarceration, and community supervision.  Central methodological issues include research designs and their execution, systematic reviews and meta-analysis, and internal and external validity of program effects.

SM 650. Inductive Statistical Methods from Exploratory Data Analysis to Statistical Learning. (B) Berk.

Data analysis has always had a significant exploratory component.  Often exploratory work is undertaken as a clandestine activity not to be discussed in polite company.  But beginning with the work of John Tukey, Frederick Mosteller, and others, exploratory data analysis was explicitly recognized and given more structure.  Recent theoretical advances in statistics and computer science coupled with dramatic increases in computer power have led to "muscle car" versions of exploratory data analysis carrying such labels as statistical learning or machine learning.  In this course, a number of these new procedures will be considered: bagging, boosting, support vector machines, random forests and others.  Some theory will be discussed, but much of the emphasis will be on practical applications with real data.

SM 700. (SOCI700) Advanced Pro-Seminar in Criminology. (A) Staff.

SM 701. Advanced Pro-Seminar in Criminology II. (B) Staff.

800. Thesis Research Project. (C) Staff.

999. Independent Study and Research. (C) Both terms.

Primarily for advanced students who work with individual faculty upon permission.  Intended to go beyond existing graduate courses in the study of specific problems or theories or to provide work opportunities in areas not covered by existing courses.