This course examines the principles of criminal law and liability. The aims of the course are: to promote and refine research and social policy analysis skills; develop a rigorous analytical and socially oriented approach to the study of criminalisation and criminal law; investigate the constitution of concepts like crime, criminal and criminal law; question traditional approaches which assume a unified set of principles; suggest an approach to criminal law as a number of diverse fields of regulation; acknowledge the importance of forms of regulation outside the criminal law; examine empirical material on the actual operation of the NSW criminal process such as court statistics and a court observation exercise; and examine the substantive rules developed in selected criminal offence areas. Topics include: the phenomenon of crime, the criminal process, components of criminal offences, drug offences, public order offences.