An introduction to one of the most relevant and controversial topics in modern society - crime and its control, this module adopts a criminological and socio-legal approach to give you the opportunity to reflect on current issues on criminality, criminal and deviant behaviour, social control, policing and punishment. The ‘problem of crime’ remains an unresolved puzzle with fascinating issues and we’ll use a variety of perspectives to engage with on-going, cutting edge debates in criminal justice. We will analyse the criminal justice system through studies of surveillance, policing, and sentencing and engage in the advanced study of key national and international law and policy developments relating to areas such as policing and crime prevention, youth justice, and corporate crime. With engaging discussion on key issues in life and politics on a national and international level, it will provide you with the essentials in understanding how crime and punishment are conceptualised. Criminology and Criminal Justice is an introductory module into how criminal behaviour has been articulated by criminologists and how different criminal justice agencies have responded to various forms of crime. Based on lectures, friendly class discussions, experiential learning and field-trips, he module invites students to reflect how crime affects contemporary societies and how liberal democracies have responded to crime. Our intellectual focus will be on the English legal system but the module will also draw international comparisons placing crime and its control in their global context. We will look both at general theories of crime causation and measures of crime (considering relevant categories such as gender, ethnicity and youth criminality), and will also focus on specific types of crime relevant to our current socio-economic climate, i.e. drugs and human trafficking; corporate and white-collar crime; and terrorism and counterinsurgency. Appealing to students from a variety of backgrounds, this module offers an interactive experience of the English criminal justice system with possible visits to a high security prison, museums, a case at court and the Royal Courts of Justice.

law related field