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, MacDonald. 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.
360. Crime & Human Development. (M)
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, PUBH534) 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 688. Comparative Criminology. Ahmed. This course on cross national study of crime covers the political and the legal
systems of different countries, history of their criminal justice systems, their classification of crime, crime statistics
and transnational crime; thier police, prosecutorial and judicial systems and processes, penalties, sentencing processes,
prisons and extadition treaties.
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.
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