Explaining Punishment - LAWS8015
Faculty: Faculty of Law
School: Faculty of Law
Course Outline: See below
Campus: Sydney
Career: Postgraduate
Units of Credit: 6
EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)
Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 2
Enrolment Requirements:
Pre-requisite: Academic Program must be 9200 or 9210 or 9230 or 5740 or 9285 or 5285 or 9220 or 5750.
Excluded: JURD7615
CSS Contribution Charge: 1 (more info)
Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule
Further Information: See Class Timetable
View course information for previous years.
Description
LLM Specialisation
Recommended Prior Knowledge
Course Objectives
- To explore punishment and penalty in modern society
- To provide an understanding of the relationship between race, gender and class and the administration of the punishment
- To consider the relationship between punishment and social structure, and the significance of punishment for socio-political order
- To consider the relationship between sentencing and punishment
- To explore various theoretical contributions to the concept of punishment
- To analyse contemporary issues in punishment and the related public policy dilemmas
- To encourage students to develop their skills in inter-disciplinary research
Main Topics
- Contemporary law and public policy issues, including juvenile detention, women in prison, the imprisonment of ethnic and racial minorities, inequality and imprisonment, privatisation, the use of torture, deaths in custody, the death penalty, and the impact of law and order policies on punishment
- Consideration of various theoretical contributions to our understanding of punishment including the work of Durkheim, Foucault, Weber, Marxist approaches, and contemporary writers like David Garland and John Pratt
Assessment
Seminar presentation and Essay synopsis – 20%
Research essay (5,000 words) – 70%
Course Texts
Prescribed
Garland, D. (1990) Punishment and Modern Society, Oxford University Press
Recommended
None
Resources