First year
The Global Crime Problem
This core unit is only available to students studying the Bachelor of Criminology. This unit presents contemporary global challenges for those tasked with responding to crime and criminality. Students will be presented with several topical issues that are key challenges for contemporary governments and non-state actors. The unit is global in focus but relates examples back to concerns found on our doorstep. Students will be immersed in examples of successful and unsuccessful responses to unwanted and criminal behaviour. Topics may include: terrorism, the war on drugs, organised crime, migration and criminality, over-policing and government inertia to escalating crisis.
The Complexity of Crime
This unit introduces students to the complexity of crime as a social phenomenon and maps the key theoretical frameworks that have been advanced to explain crime and deviance. The unit requires students to engage their 'criminological imaginations' to understand the causality of crime and the infraction of social norms and values. The unit begins by examining how deviancy and crime are socially constructed. Various theoretical perspectives that have been developed to try and explain crime and deviancy will then be explored. Beginning with the classical school of criminology that emerged in the late 18th Century, the unit presents how understandings of criminal behaviour have developed and advanced. Subcultural theories and the labelling of individuals as 'deviant' will be examined, alongside Marxist readings that help explain social inequality and the links between poverty and the criminal justice system. The unit critically engages students with the theories presented; and teaches students to critique their value, utility and explanatory power in contemporary society.
Controlling Crime, Controlling Society
This unit facilitates student development of foundational knowledge in policing and crime prevention as forms of social control. Students will be introduced to different ways of thinking about social control in Australia and other societies. The unit introduces students to policing as a form of social control, with students examining the role of law, civil rights and occupational culture in the context of police operations. Students examine the historical development of police services and their transformation since 9/11 along with emerging challenges associated with policing transnational threats. The focus then shifts to different forms of crime prevention that have gained popularity in recent decades as a means of addressing the shortcomings of criminal justice institutions in reducing the incidence and prevalence of crime. Students learn about different approaches including situational crime prevention and social crime prevention and consider the advantages and limitations of these in practice.
Punishment, Courts and Corrections
The unit presents the administrative workings, functions and experiences in areas such as courts, sentencing, imprisonment, community corrections, parole and release. The unit will equip students with a solid understanding of courts and corrections in the criminal justice system. Importantly, students will observe how the administration of justice is played out through the court system and consider punishments against themes of human difference, exclusion, human rights and social justice. This unit presents basic penological theories and understandings of punishment and its role in our society. The unit encourages students to grasp how punishment and prisons cannot be viewed outside broader social, political and economic contexts. Applied focus is upon the administrative functions in courts, correctional settings and prisons in Australia.
Second year
Crime, Justice and the Public
This unit prepares students to shape crime and justice policies in government agencies and non-governmental organisations by introducing them to the process of making and implementing of criminal justice policies. It utilises contemporary case studies and engages active and retired policy makers and practitioners. Students are introduced to the procedural dynamics of crime and justice policy-making in Victoria (state), Australia (federal), and internationally. The politics of crime and justice policy-making in Victoria are explored. The significant obstacles faced by policy makers, when attempting to develop effective and humane crime and justice policies, are addressed. Building on this foundational knowledge, students are given a practical introduction to the skills of policy development and writing. The focus of the unit then shifts to the implementation of crime and justice policy, with students examining the various challenges associated with translating these into practice.
Indigenous Justice in Australia
Students learn about Indigenous peoples, populations and communities through academic and Indigenous perspectives. This unit examines the historical and cultural scope of law and criminal justice, criminal justice administration, and the legal representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations in Australian systems of justice. This unit examines the use of the criminal justice system in Australia to manage Aboriginal people from colonisation until now. Considering crime and criminal justice through a settler-colonial lens, students will learn from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices about experiences of crime and criminal justice, emerging trends in Indigenous justice and consider the role of self-determination and reconciliation in the 'decolonisation' of criminal justice. It utilises Indigenous perspectives and critical inter-disciplinary work to examine topics such as: Indigenous customary law, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, mandatory sentencing practices, and the policing of public space.
Victims, Justice and the Law
The unit considers the concepts of justice, victims and the law as they exist within and beyond the legal system. The unit engages with historical and contemporary perspectives and constructions of these intersecting concepts to explore understandings of crime and criminality, and examine the potentials and limitations of the legal system in practice. Bringing together interdisciplinary approaches from law, criminology and socio-legal studies, this unit considers the relationships between law, justice and victims through the study of: criminal and civil law, restorative justice, therapeutic jurisprudence, public policy, the media, criminal justice procedures, human rights and social change.
Third year
Crime, Risk and Security
This unit provides a background to the challenges facing contemporary criminology nationally and internationally. Students will identify and interrogate the narratives that make up the diverse perceptions of crime, the evolution of 'risk society', ideas of local and global security/insecurity and the impact this has on criminal justice policy and the rights and liberties of individuals. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the study of crime, risk and surveillance students engage with the various ways individuals experience, understand and act upon perceived risk in various contexts. Students explore how perceptions of risk are used to justify both necessary and excessive forms of intrusive surveillance. Students learn to question the extent to which government and non-government organisations can effectively mitigate threats that exist within and beyond the state, and critically engage with crime prediction, risk assessment and surveillance strategies of criminal justice agencies in Australia and internationally.
