"A crime is an act that violates a very important political or moral command. In many nations, informal relationships and sanctions have been found to be ineffective for avoiding and controlling some types of antisocial behavior, so the system of social control has had to be formalised by the government who is able to use the force to costrain individuals who would not otherwise adhere to the norm. To protect its citizens, laws and prevention policies are designed to regulate human behavior and the State provides crime prevention policies, remedies and sanctions if the laws are broken. Not all breaches of the law are considered crimes, however, for example breaches of contract. The label of "crime" and the accompanying social stigma are usually reserved for those activities causing more serious loss and damage to the citizens of the State. Its use is intended to reflect a consensus of condemnation for the identified behavior and, in the event that an accused is convicted following a trial applying principles of due process, to justify the State imposing punishment, although the term is used technically also when criminal law is used to regulate minor infractions, e.g. traffic violations. Usually, the perpetrator of the crime is a natural person, but in some jurisdictions and in some moral environments, also legal persons are considered to have the capability of committing crimes. In common parlance, even the State can be said to commit a crime, although in judicial sense this is often not the case."
Economics is the science of choice. "The science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." Economic analysis of crime and punishment will be the main focus of this course. This course also is also designated as an "alternative voices" course.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Knowledge and Understanding - By the end of this course, students should be able to:
Intellectual & Practical Skills - By the end of this course, students should develop problem solving abilities using logical and quantitative skills to:
Teaching Style
The course will be conducted in a lecture-discussion, interaction, application, format. Most of the presentations will use multi-media, and information will be obtained from many current sources. The level of analysis is intended to be such that a student with little previous training in economics can comprehend the material with the help of the instructor. Lectures will emphasize important or difficult points in the readings. Students will be responsible for presenting and discussing material from the readings in class. Throughout the course, the emphasis is on presenting a consistent framework in which to analyze and develop public policy for dealing with crime and punishment. Students are expected to keep up on the material (that is - read material in advance of the lecture) and bring any questions about the material to class. Since the course material builds over the semester, it is important that students keep up and not fall behind. Class interaction will be required of all students. "Alternative voices" is an integral part of this course.
The assigned readings, mult-media presentations, class discussions, and assignments, will be an integral part of the learning experience. If you have trouble with some concept or the reading, or any of the assigned work, and it is not made clear in class, I expect you to seek me out. I am available during office hours and most any other time when I am in my office. A student may always set up an appointment or use Email to contact me (about material, issues, or concerns) about the class.
Resources
Cleo (http://cleo.whitman.edu) will be used to store student grades and as a "drop box" for assignments. Most information for the course will be available on the course webpage. The grading information for this course is outlined on the requirements page.
Philosophy
To loosely quote David D. Friedman "Many students have been persuaded, by their experience in high school and college, that taking a course consists of memorizing a set of conclusions. Reading course material then becomes an exercise in creative highlighting, designed to extract from five hundred pages of verbiage, the thirty or forty pages containing the answers to the questions that will appear on the exam.
Such a collection of answers is about as easy to remember as a collection of random numbers, and not much more useful. Students who practice this form of learning generally forget shortly after the final most of what they have learned. This course is based on a different idea of how economics (and most other things) should be taught--the idea that since answers are hard to remember and easy to look up, one should instead concentrate on learning ways of thinking."
This course will introduce students to the economic way of thinking and emphasize the development of a consistent framework in which to analyze and develop public policies for dealing with crime and punishment issues. As stated by the Hellman and Alper, "Our hope is that the student will come away from the course with a new perspective on crime and with a general approach to the analysis of crime and of possible ways of dealing with it which can be applied to new situations or data."
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