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. Students will be asked to make a presentation in the middle of the course and a final paper on one of the topics presented in the second part of the course. The final exam will consist in a discussion with the teacher about the paper.
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.
Research on specific subjects will help students to get the ability to adopt a sociological perspective in the study of law. The work on real cases will help to develop the ability to assess the framework of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights on prisoners' social and labor rights.
Prerequisites
Students must have passed the exams of General Constitutional Law, Private Law I. It is 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
Type of Assessment
Intermediate tests: mid-term presentation and discussion in seminars; final presentation and discussion in seminars.
Final exam: for attending students, it will consist in a discussion on paper. The evaluation will be based on the quality of the written paper, on the oral presentation and on the participation to the discussion of the papers of the other students.
For non-attending students, it will be about the textbooks
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.
There will follow a seminar part involving the reading of texts, the drafting of papers and their collective discussion. 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 relationship between morality and criminal law; the opposition between the classical school and the positive school (Lombroso and Ferri); retribution, due process and deterrence theories; the opposition between punishment and offender's treatment; abolitionist theories; the sociology of prison life; ‘total institutions'; the process of degradation of defendants and convicts; the representation of deviance in the media; the transition from the welfare state to the ‘penal state'; theories of juvenile deviance; Durkheim's sociology of punishment: anomie; the Chicago school; the labelling theory; critical criminology and the new criminological realism.
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”. Particular attention will be given to the evolution of the system of judicial protection of prisoners’ rights.
A the end of this last part, the students will be asked to make a presentation on a topic of interest or on case of violation of prisoners' social and labour rights to prepare an appeal to the surveillance judge or ECHR.
In order to attend seminars, a good knowledge of English is recommended.