CRI-30068 - Module Specification
School of Social Sciences
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2024/25

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2024/25

As criminologists, we tend to think of the criminal justice system as the bureaucratic realm of rigorously trained professionals who make decisions based on their expertise ¿ our discipline exists because the state has decided to monopolise reactions to harm and crime. However, ordinary citizens play multiple roles in legal and extra-legal crime control and punishment: they observe each other and help produce evidence of crimes, they serve as adjudicators in trials, and, as victims of crimes, they are accorded increasingly active roles in judicial processes. Occasionally, citizens even temporarily stand in for state institutions and take justice into their own hands. To complicate things further, institutions and politicians need the active support of citizens to remain legitimate ¿ and powerful ¿ and increasingly recruit them for control and accountability purposes.
This module will help students to think systematically about the many forms of `participation¿ (with in-depth discussions of case studies of the Global North and the Global South), and to critically assess attempts at theorising them. The module will also encourage students to critically think about participation as criminologists, with opportunities for reflection on their future as practitioners ¿ through contemporary discussions on the public role of criminology, the relationship between expertise and common sense, and the needs to decolonise our curriculum and professional practices.

-To provide an overview of key theories to explain ordinary citizens relationship with legal and punitive institutions
-To introduce students to core themes and cases of `participation¿ in legal and extra-legal crime control and punishment, and to conceptual approaches that help us critically comprehend them
-To develop students¿ ability to critically analyse their own role as future criminologists and criminal justice practitioners

Intended Learning Outcomes

Describe and critically evaluate a range of concepts and theories relating to common citizens¿ relationship with legal and punitive institutions: 1
Provide, in light of these theories, critical assessments of examples of contemporary political and social phenomena involving the participation of non-professional citizens in legal and punitive institutions: 1
Obtain, summarise, critically analyse, and effectively present a range of sources of data on specific social and political processes and case studies of citizen participation in criminal justice and punishment in Global North and Global South contexts: 1
Critically assess the impact of social diversity, inequalities, and colonialism on historical and contemporary practices of criminalisation and punishment, on the participation of citizens therein, and on the production and global dissemination of criminological knowledge: 1
Reflect on their own positionality as students and future practitioners in relation to the processes studied and to the historical roots and contemporary roles of criminology and criminologists: 1

Study hours

12 2-hour sessions organised as a combination of interactive lectures, seminars, workshops and practical classes.
24 hours of directed preparation for lecture-seminars and workshops via engagement with online asynchronous activities and information specific to each learning week.
102 hours of personal study, additional self-directed preparation for classes, assessment preparation (including research on and writing up of essay)

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment