This course will introduce, examine, and provide students the skills with which to analyze adult prison reform. This course will emphasize a conceptual approach rather than a statistical focus to studying the creation, implementation, and evaluation of prison reform. Topics may include fiscal costs of incarceration, private prisons, evaluation of correctional policies and practices, clemency and pardons, elderly prisoners, solitary confinement, public health consequences of imprisonment, reduction in incarceration, improvements in conditions of confinement, the need for rehabilitation and treatment programs, concerns of female prisoners and more.