This is an inter and trans-disciplinary course, serve as an introduction into the current realities and challenges of the LatinX community within the criminal justice complex in the United States. The course seeks to critically examine the misconceptions and realities of the LatinX community within the larger discussion of mass incarceration and prison reform in the United States.

Close attention will also be paid to the use of criminalization as a form of social control and the proliferation of regulations, ordinances, and legislative acts that give legal form to such methods of discipline and punishment.

The course will address dynamics and phenomena of racial profiling; juvenile justice; drug criminalization; and the intersection of immigration law with criminal law. The course seeks to shift to understanding and connecting the prison-industrial complex to what the future holds for marginalized communities within the current movement and crisis of global capital.