January 27: Course description, expectations
MODULE #1: Relationship of Religion & Law
January 29: Religion and Law in general
⇒ READINGS: CRIME, ch.1 and ch.2
“Religious Dimensions of Law” (Berman)
February 3: Non-Christian Models I (Judaism)
⇒ READINGS: Genesis 1:1 – Genesis 2:3
Exodus 20:1-14
Exodus 23:12
Exodus 24:3-13
Exodus 25:1-9
Pirkei Avot 1:1
February 5: Non-Christian Models II (Islam)
⇒ READINGS: al-Quran, Surah Al-Ma’idah (The Table)
“Islamic Law and Society” (Safi)
February 10: “Western” Law
⇒ READINGS: The Code of Hammurabi (Babylonia, 1750 BCE)
The Twelve Tables (Rome, 450 BCE)
“The First Thousand Years” (Tierney)
“‘Corpus Juris Civilis’ and ‘Corpus Juris Canonici’” (Catalina)
February 12: Public Lecture
Brad Stoddard, “High for a Higher Power?: God, Drugs, and Religious Freedom”
Brock Commons
12:00 – 12:50 pm
February 12 + 17: Christianity
⇒ READINGS: “Treatise on Law Q91 [and editor’s introduction]” (Aquinas)
“The Influence of Christianity on the Development of Western Law” (Berman)
“The Bible in the Service of the Canon Law” (Helmholz)
February 19: Interval #1 – The Project / Basic Research Strategies
MODULE #2: Religion & Crime
February 24 + 26
⇒ READINGS: CRIME, ch.14 and ch.18
“Clash of Civilizations” (Huntington)
“Reflections on Contemporary Anti-Catholicism” (Fogarty)
“Hellfire and Delinquency” (Hirschi and Stark)
March 3: Interval #2 – Notation & Citation
DUE: Unit Analysis #1 [Religion & Law]
PROMPT: How did your chosen person justify / refute “breaking the law”? What aspect of his / her beliefs was used to justify that position? On what might the allegedly violated law have been based, religiously? (For this prompt, you’ll have to find out a bit about your person and that person’s belief system, and you’ll have to consider how to ground the allegedly violated law to something we already have read for class.)
MODULE #3: Religion & Policing
March 5 + 10
⇒ READING: CRIME ch.3, ch.4, and ch.5
“Religion, Race, and Perceptions of Police Harassment” (Ferguson, Scheitle, and Ecklund)
MODULE #4: Religion in Court
March 12
⇒ READING: CRIME ch.9 and ch.10
“The Limits of Religious Values in Judicial Decision-making” (Idleman)
DUE: Unit Analysis #2 [Religion & Policing]
PROMPT: What kind of experience did your chosen person have with the police (or similar institution) once he / she was accused of violation the law? How might that experience have been influenced by what you found for your Unit Analysis #1, either for your person or for the police?
March 17-19: NO CLASS (Spring Break)
MODULE #5: Religion & Prison
March 24: Interval #3 – Building a sustained argument
March 26: Religion and the Birth of the Prison
⇒ READING: “Torture,” from Discipline and Punish (Foucault)
“Evangelical Quakerism and the Early American Penitentiary Revisited” (Adamson)
March 31: Religion in Prison
⇒ READING: “Religious Freedom in the Correctional Institution” (King)
Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act [RLUIPA]
April 2: NO CLASS (Pesah)
April 7-9: Religion and Prison
⇒ READING: “Religiosity, Religious Participation, and Negative Prison Behaviors” (Kerley, Matthews, Blanchard)
“Conning or Conversion? The Role of Religion in Prison Coping” (Thomas, Zaitow)
April 14: Prison Chaplaincy
⇒ READING: “The Role of the Contemporary Prison Chaplain” (Sundt and Cullen)
MODULE #6: Religion & Punishment
April 16: Religion and the Death Penalty
⇒ READING: “Capital Punishment as the Unconstitutional Establishment of Religion” (McBride)
DUE: Unit Analysis #3 [Religion & Prison]
PROMPT: What was your chosen person’s experience while incarcerated – not just in terms of the day-to-day, but also in terms of an overall experience? How might that experience have been influenced by what you found for your Unit Analysis #1, either for your person or for those in charge of the incarceration?
April 21-28: Religion, Redemption, and Rehabilitation
⇒ READING: “Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Fiction from Prison” (Moses)
“Norman Carlson, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the Rise
of Prison Fellowship” (Oliver)
DUE (April 28): Unit Analysis #4
PROMPT: What possible religious impact did the experience with the criminal justice system have on your person, your person’s religious community, the criminal justice system, or society in general? Was your person / community / system / society transformed in any way? (Think about this in terms of your person’s religious foundations / beliefs before and after the experience.)
April 30-May 5: Presentations of Personalities
May 7: NO CLASS (Instructor away)
DUE: DRAFT of final papers
May 11 (Monday)
DUE: Final Papers (by 8:00 pm [submitted via email: emazur@vwu.edu])
PROMPT: From you person’s experiences through each step of the criminal justice system, what (if any) conclusions can we make about the relationship of religion and criminal justice?
[Suggested format: 1) Combine your Unit #1, #2, #3, and #4 analyses into one document; 2) streamline your sources – make sure that they’re correct, in proper format, and not duplicated; 3) write a conclusion based on the prompt; 4) write an introduction based on your conclusion/s; 5) streamline the entire text – make sure it now flows smoothly, like 1 final paper (rather than 4 shorter papers pasted together); 6) proofread to make sure it makes sense, is clear, uses proper grammar and punctuation, and HAS YOUR NAME ON IT(!).]
“Citation Help” (H.C. Hofheimer II Library, VWU)
