SOC5072 - Cultures of Crime

Objectives:

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:
Demonstrate a knowledge and appreciation of a range cultures and their influences on crime and victimisation.
Demonstrate an understanding of key debates concerning specific cultures of crime (e.g. child criminality and football hooliganism).
Demonstrate an ability to analyse cultural representations of key criminological themes in the light of complex ethical debates.
Demonstrate an ability to work as part of a team on a shared task, allocating roles, conductive collaborative research and meeting deadlines to pre-agreed standards.

Content:

This module explores the various cultures and subcultures of contemporary crimes that face society. In addition, the module will examine victimisation and repeat victimisation within different cultures and sub-culture groups. The module will explore the conflicting debates regarding specific criminological topics and explore the social and group dynamics of a range of crime cultures. Students can expect to cover a number of the following criminological topics including: football hooliganism, gangs, homelessness, child criminality, and crime amongst other examples. Within the module students will pay particular attention to how such cultures and crimes are reported and presented within the media.

Learning and Teaching Information:

Learning and teaching methods will be structured around student-led project work, supported by workshop activities, such as directed reading and writing, seminar debates, student-led presentations, and guidance and support for the critical skills and presentation techniques or tools to be employed. Feedback on student work and feed-forward guidance will be central to this module.

Seminars/workshops
Hours: 32
Intended Group size: 30

Guided independent study
Hours: 168

Further details relating to assessment
Assessment 1 – The group presentation will need to demonstrate an understanding of one relevant area of cultural criminological enquiry and critically discuss how this area has been theorized by cultural criminologists.

Assessment 2 – Students are required to select one particular culture of crime and outline the conflicting perspectives and representations surrounding this culture. To do this students will critically examine the origins and developments of this crime culture within both wider society and mainstream media. In addition to this, students will need to offer an analysis of how the prespectives and representations of their chosen crime culture, impact and shape how that culture is policed and controlled. When doing this students are expected to draw on theories and scholarly work covered within the module to further support their work.

Assessment:

001 Group presentation; 10 mins; mid-semester 2 50%
002 Essay; 2,000 word equivalent; end of semester 2 50%

Fact File

Module Coordinator - Robert Hornsby
Level - 5
Credit Value - 20
Pre-Requisites - NONE
Semester(s) Offered - 5S2

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