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Crime Prevention Policy - LAWS8103
Law Books

 
Faculty: Faculty of Law
 
 
School:  Faculty of Law
 
 
Course Outline: See below
 
 
Campus: Kensington Campus
 
 
Career: Postgraduate
 
 
Units of Credit: 6
 
 
EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)
 
 
Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 2
 
 
Enrolment Requirements:
 
 
Prerequisite: Academic Program must be either 9200, 9210, 5740 or 9230
 
 
Fee Band: 1 (more info)
 
 
Further Information: See Class Timetable
 
 

Description

Crime Prevention policy is a criminological course which aims to introduce students to central concepts and issues in the emerging crime prevention literature and practice. The course is socio-legal in orientation, although there is scope for discussion of legal regimes in relation to specific topics. An attempt will be made to apply the knowledge of theoretical and practical developments to specific local contexts and the major Research Assignment is directed to this end.


LLM Specialisation

Criminal Justice and Criminology

Recommended Prior Knowledge

Criminal Law 1 and 2 or their equivalent.

Course Objectives

There have been considerable developments in the field of crime prevention policy in recent years as the limitations of over-reliance on the criminal justice agencies become apparent. A renewed interest in the concepts of space and locality have led to the development of situational and social crime prevention in the USA, UK and western European countries, and to a lesser but increasing extent, Australia. Previous criminological work in an ecological tradition has been revived. Links are being forged across traditional disciplinary boundaries, for example geography, urban sociology, town planning and criminology. A primary objective of this course is to examine these developments.

A subsidiary objective is to foster a range of approaches to socio-legal scholarship. There will be a strong emphasis on inter-disciplinary approaches. Students will be required to complete a piece of applied research, a Crime Prevention Assessment of a particular site.

Main Topics

  • Space, geography and the city
  • The emergence of fear of crime as a criminological object
  • The rise of risk, marketing and technology
  • Crime prevention in rural areas
  • The Chicago ecological tradition
  • Situational crime prevention
  • Social crime prevention
  • The 'broken windows' debate and zero tolerance
  • Defensible space
  • Early childhood intervention
  • Local government and crime prevention plans
  • Housing and disadvantage; alcohol, violence and licensed premises
  • Drugs and crime
  • Youth and crime prevention
  • Crime prevention in Indigenous communities
  • Recidivism and desistance
  • The politics of crime prevention

Assessment

Class participation Preparation and engagement in class 10%
Research essay 5,000 words 90%
 

Course Texts

Prescribed
Murray Lee, Inventing Fear of Crime: Willan Publishing (2007)

The course will be based on a set of readings prepared by the teacher.

Recommended
Nick Tilley (ed) Handbook of Crime Prevention and Community Safety, Willan Publishing (2005)

Resources

Course readings; Recommended texts; Library holdings.

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© The University of New South Wales (CRICOS Provider No.: 00098G), 2004-2011. The information contained in this Handbook is indicative only. While every effort is made to keep this information up-to-date, the University reserves the right to discontinue or vary arrangements, programs and courses at any time without notice and at its discretion. While the University will try to avoid or minimise any inconvenience, changes may also be made to programs, courses and staff after enrolment. The University may also set limits on the number of students in a course.