Course Catalogue

Justice Studies

This interdisciplinary Module aims to critically engage with important questions around harm, responsibility, accountability and regulation. It seeks to explore how and why particular acts (or failures to act) by particular actors become viewed as ‘crimes’ worthy of criminal justice sanction, whilst others do not. The Module aims to apply the core concepts of harm, responsibility, accountability and regulation to the study of powerful people, groups and institutions. In doing so, it hopes to enhance students’ knowledge and understanding of social harm theory, the harms caused by state and state-corporate acts and omissions, the competing claims made around organisational and individual agency, and the problems and possibilities of different regulatory approaches.

Outline Syllabus:
• Power, crime and criminalisation. • State, corporate and state-corporate crimes and harms. • Harm within the criminal justice system. • Regulation in theory and practice. • Problems and possibilities of agency and accountability.

Module Overview:
This module intends to critically engage you with important questions around harm, responsibility, accountability and regulation. It seeks to explore how and why particular acts (or failures to act) by particular actors become viewed as ‘crimes’ worthy of criminal justice sanction, whilst others do not.

The module aims to apply the core concepts of harm, responsibility, accountability and regulation to the study of powerful people, groups and institutions. In doing so, it hopes to enhance your knowledge and understanding of social harm theory, the harms caused by state and state-corporate acts and omissions, the competing claims made around organisational and individual agency, and the problems and possibilities of different regulatory approaches.

Additional Information:
This Module encourages students to consider ‘the powerful’ as a source of harm and crime. It applies a range of criminological theories and concepts to real-life examples, drawn from both the local and global context. The Module also explores the criminal justice system as a site of harm, and as such, develops students’ understanding of power, ‘crime’ and criminalisation. The group project is further designed to cultivate organisational, team-working and time management skills.