Handbook

Subject Area: Criminology

What causes crime? Who is more likely to offend and why? What can we do to prevent crime? How does criminological theory help us understand the current criminal justice system? This course builds upon your understanding of the major theoretical approaches to crime and criminal justice, and seeks to answer the above questions. Criminological theory will be critically examined for its utility in developing policy responses and understanding the historical and contemporary development of our understandings of crime, criminality and the criminal justice system. Similar to other social sciences, criminology is a reflexive discipline whereby part of the criminological enterprise is to critically examine criminology itself. We will look at theories that help us to understand what generates crime, how to prevent crime and how crime is best dealt with.