CR5010 - Crime, Offenders and Victims

The module aims to further develop your skills in areas such as group discussion and debate as well as independent learning. Weekly lectures will frame the discussion of each area of the syllabus. Teaching will employ the use of a set of key crime, offending and victimisation questions which will be worked through and revisited throughout the lecture and seminar workshop programme. The learning experience on this module will draw upon a glossary of key concepts that you will test the utility of and grapple with. Selective key stages and agencies of the criminal justice process – and the role of other partner agencies – will form the context for us to explore how victims, witnesses and offenders experience this process and to expand your theoretical knowledge and your ability to engage in debates concerning policy development and practice. Lectures will introduce theory, research policy and practice connectives and will stimulate and provoke your thinking. Seminars will follow a more student-led, workshop format. For each seminar workshop you are likely to engage in work as part of a discussion group to unpack, debate, research and analyse a set of provocative questions via a case study or alternative exercise. You will also have space to develop your own thinking and position as a scholar of policing and criminology. The seminar workshops are tailored to the learning preferences of the students on the module each year and these are determined in consultation with you and your cohort in the first weeks. The learning and teaching on this module allows us to oscillate between theory and practice. Formative assessment is built into the seminar workshop and lecture programme. Further development of your confidence in synthesising, explaining and discussing information from a range of sources is also a key aim of the approach taken in this module.

Developing your ability to reflect informatively, and think critically about some of the challenges posed by considering links between crime, offending, victimisation and wider social problems is central to this module. The module encourages you to make appropriate connections between theory, research, policy and practice in terms of policing, partner agencies and the wider criminal justice system. As part of your intellectual development, you will receive support from your peers in the classroom and from the module tutor/s throughout the module.

Support outside the classroom includes additional academic support via 1-1 tutorial support opportunities that we encourage you to take up with the module tutor/s.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the module you should be able to: 1. Demonstrate your knowledge and understanding links between victimisation, offending and wider socio-economic problems in the context of given scenarios encountered by police. 2. Demonstrate your ability to identify, explain, evaluate and interpret theories of offending and desistance, particularly in relation to policing. Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities: By the end of the module you should be able to: 3. Communicate your knowledge and understanding of key perspectives on offending and victimisation and link those to policing and statutory authorities accurately. 4. Understand the variety of policy/guidance documents relevant to policing and the work of other agencies intersecting with the police in the criminal justice system.
Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA): By the end of the module you should have developed the ability to: 5. understand and put into practice the fundamental responsibility of the police service to identify and support those who are vulnerable or at risk 6. Enhance your knowledge and understanding of key roles of the police in conjunction with partner agencies and the link to community engagement.

Formative assessment During the semester you will complete a written exercise analysing a problem scenario relating to policing, requiring a plan of action underpinned by academic theory. This will be marked by your seminar tutor and you will receive written feedback on your answer. Summative assessment This will take the form of a written examination. The examination will require you to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of key theoretical and criminological perspectives on causes of offending and patterns of victimisation. It will also address the role of the police in relation to other agencies and the value and nature of police community engagement. Summative feedback will be available in written form on scripts, via the eLP as notes for guidance and orally from module/seminar tutors. Assessment Criteria and Grade-Related Criteria will be made available to you to support you in completing assessments. Grade-Related Descriptors are descriptions of the level of skills, knowledge and/or attributes that you need to demonstrate in order achieve a certain grade or mark in an assessment, providing a mechanism by which the quality of an assessment can be measured and placed within the overall set of marks.

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Crime, offending and victimisation do not occur randomly and are not dispersed evenly across society. The module explores relations between crime, offending and victimisation and wider patterns of gender, ethnicity, geography and socio-economic factors to consider how broader inequalities are shaped by, and subsequently influence, social harm. The role of the police and other partner agencies within and beyond the criminal justice sector are critically examined in terms of different intervention and prevention models and links drawn with the conduct of police investigations. The relationship of police and community, and the importance of legitimacy and trust, are considered both as important democratic principles and factors that are essential for effective investigation, intelligence-gathering, and crime prevention.