Just when you think a course write-up is finished, there is a protest/riot at the Capital Building! While the course is designed to be non-fluid, we cannot ignore the every-day activities that absolutely rock the world.
The course is designed to help you understand how deviance, deviant, conformity, non-conformity, justice, legitimacy and so on become framed by media, politics, and in our social systems. We will look at three theories that seek to 'frame' deviance, various acts of deviance and the outcomes to our societies. We will also look at solutions.
Dr. John McKendy was a much loved professor here at St. Thomas University. His students took from him every class they could. He worked to build an AIDS hospital in Burundi after the Rwandan genocide and he truly loved people. He saw the best in everyone. There were few like him. Nick, his ex-son-in-law murdered him. John knew that Nick needed mental health support and programs that would help him. John could not 'love him enough' to help him. He never believed that Nick was a write-off and always wanted the best for him. In this course, we will look at Alternatives to Violence and Restorative Justice and will use Dr. McKendy's article "I'm very careful about that': Narrative and agency of men in prison" as one of our fundamental sources. I encourage you to google Dr. McKendy. The article is online and will be one of our first reading assignments.
In this course, we will also have guest speakers who work or have worked in the area of justice and/or rehabilitation.
- Teacher: Corinne Hersey