SOCI 4221: The Social Construction of Crime and Deviance
Students examine the processes involved in the social construction of crime and deviance with special emphasis on the research tradition of Michel Foucault and governmentality. Drawing on Foucault, students critically examine the relationship between human sciences discourses, disciplinary forms of power, and the creation of modern forms of subjectivity. Students research the development of the prison system and the recent emergence of new strategies of social control which seek to govern behaviour outside of institutional structures. Students explore specific issues such as alternative penal practices like restorative justice, Indigenous sentencing circles and healing centres, the application of public health models to control addiction, IV drug use and sex work, governmental strategies to respond to domestic violence and hate crime, and the contemporary expansion of surveillance, risk management, audits, situational controls, and legal exemptions.
Learning outcomes
- Develop the skills of theoretically grounded research.
- Discuss the contributions of Michel Foucault’s work to the understanding of the social construction and control of crime, deviance and the criminal subject.
- Examine how expert knowledge, relations of power, and subjectivity are related in different sites of social control.
- Analyze the origins of the prison system and disciplinary forms of power in modern societies.
- Research new post-disciplinary strategies of social control and government which seek to control behaviour outside of institutional structures.
- Apply the theoretical concepts and analyses in the course to contemporary issues of criminal justice, problematic behaviour, decolonization, rehabilitation and healing.
- Explain how modern concepts of the criminal, the delinquent, the addict, the mentally ill, the Indigenous offender and other subjects of control are linked to the mutual development of a disciplinary society.
Course topics
- Unit 1: Knowledge, Power, and the Construction of the Criminal Subject
- Unit 2: The Panopticon, the Prison, and the Delinquent
- Unit 3: Post-Disciplinary Power and the Society of Control
- Unit 4: Applied Governmentality
Required text and materials
Students require the following e-textbook, which can be purchased directly from the link at: https://tru-store.vitalsource.com/products/discipline-and-punish-michel-foucault-v9780307819291
- Michel Foucault. (1995). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage.
Type: Textbook. ISBN: 9780679752554 / 9780307819291
Assessments
To successfully complete this course, students must achieve a passing grade of 50% or higher on the overall course, and 50% or higher on the final mandatory project.
| Assignment 1: Unit 1 Short Answers | 10% |
| Assignment 2: Unit 2 Short Answers | 10% |
| Assignment 3: Unit 3 Short Answers | 10% |
| Assignment 4: Unit 4 Short Answers | 10% |
| Theoretical Research Essay | 20% |
| Glossary Term Entry | 10% |
| Final Project: Research Proposal | 5% |
| Final Project: Research Essay | 25% |
| Total | 100% |
Open Learning Faculty Member Information
An Open Learning Faculty Member is available to assist students. Students will receive the necessary contact information at the start of the course.
