Subject Area: Criminology

Crime and justice issues dominate politics, the media and popular culture. This course looks critically at the development and nature of ‘law and order politics’ and the media's fascination with crime, both of which govern popular understandings of crime risks and threats, and appropriate policy responses to them. We consider how and why crime and justice have become such a source of fascination and a policy area on which elections can be won, with reference to numerous examples from contemporary politics, news media and popular culture. For the course assessments, students will be asked to identify their own crime/criminal justice issue and develop an original analysis of how that issue is constructed in politics and/or news and entertainment media.