This course will interrogate theories and practices of punishment in relation to the American criminal justice system—a system that incarcerates people at a world-leading rate and severely impedes post-incarceration reentry into society. Discussion will include a range of perspectives on punishment and prisons—retributive justice, focused deterrence, restorative justice, reconciliation, transformative justice, reparations, and prison abolition—in order to grapple with the ethics of criminal justice with regard to individual wrongdoing and social injustice. This course can be used to satisfy University Studies requirements.