Prerequisites: Courses determined by professor

This course examines the ways in which U.S. governments sanction criminal offenders, the goals and rationales of such sanctions, and the limiting role potentially played by the Constitution in their imposition. The sanctions themselves range from the nominally civil sanctions of monetary fines and sex offender registration and community notification to the indisputably criminal sanctions of prison and death. These and other sanctions are examined, providing students with a theoretical and practical understanding of contemporary U.S. crime control strategies.