Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Allegra McLeod

J.D. Seminar 1175 (cross-listed) | 1 credit hours

This seminar will explore a series of crises that afflict border fortification and incarceration. Course readings and discussion will also center on legal reformist proposals to address those crises and more far-reaching abolitionist alternatives to borders and banishment.

Migration and incarceration—borders and banishment—present some of the most pressing legal, theoretical, and policy controversies in contemporary political life. Over the past two decades, criminal-immigration matters have become the most commonly prosecuted federal crimes; populations in immigration detention and criminal custody have dramatically increased; and the U.S. Congress is presently in the midst of considering major proposed immigration reforms as pressures to decrease reliance on incarceration in both the immigration and criminal contexts continue to mount.

The course will begin by considering the historical, psycho-social, and legal foundations of border fortification and banishment practices. Then, attention will turn to some of the crises that have pervaded border enforcement and incarceration settings—from the explosion in criminal and immigration detention to the widespread problem of prison rape, particularly as it impacts gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. Legal reformist alternatives to the status quo in immigration and criminal case processing will be considered, including through examination of public interest practice settings focused on relevant reformist projects in domestic and foreign contexts. The course will conclude by investigating various scholarly and legal abolitionist efforts to think and work beyond borders and banishment. Students will have the opportunity to visit a jail or prison, immigration and criminal court, participate in a police ride-along, and to observe public service advocacy work ongoing in these and related settings.

There are no prerequisites. All students are welcome.

This course will meet in Fall 2013 on Wednesdays, 11:10 a.m. - 1:10 p.m. on the following dates: 9/4, 9/11, 9/18, 9/25, 10/2, 10/9, and 10/16.