Criminology Descriptions
Unit outlines will be available through Find a unit outline two weeks before the first day of teaching for 1000-level and 5000-level units, or one week before the first day of teaching for all other units.
Criminology
Major
A major in Criminology requires 48 credit points from this table including:
(i) 12 credit points of 1000-level core units
(ii) a minimum of 6 credit points of 2000-level core units
(iii) a maximum of 6 credit points of 2000-level selective units
(iv) a minimum of 6 credit points of 3000-level core units
(v) a maximum of 12 credit points of 3000-level selective units
(vi) 6 credit points of Interdisciplinary Project units
Minor
A minor in Criminology requires 36 credit points from this table including:
(i) 12 credit points of 1000-level core units
(ii) 6 credit points of 2000-level core units
(iii) 6 credit points of 2000-level selective units
(iv) 6 credit points of 3000-level core units
(v) 6 credit points of 3000-level selective units
1000 level units of study
Core
CRIM1001 Introduction to Crime and Criminology
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Assessment: 1x1500wd theory essay (30%), 1x1500wd methods essay (30%), 1x1500wd take home exercise (30%), participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit considers key ideas and concepts in criminology, including definitions of crime, criminological theories of crime causation, and the consequences of crime. The unit also examines research methods used in criminology and crime research, including the ethics of conducting criminological research.
CRIM1002 Exploring Criminal Justice
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Assessment: 1x1500wd crime policy evaluation (30%), 1x1500wd essay (30%), 1x1500wd take home exercise (30%), participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit examines key features and processes of criminal justice institutions, crime justice policy and practice, and addresses contemporary debates about crime in relation to substantive areas, such as gender, race, ethnicity, and youth offending.
2000 level units of study
Core
CRIM2602 Crime, Punishment and Society
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 2x1hr lectures/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000 level in Criminology or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Social Policy or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Socio-legal Studies or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Sociology Prohibitions: SCLG2634 or SCLG2566 Assessment: 1x1000wd reflective essay (20%), 1x2000wd research essay (40%), 1x1500wd take home exercise (30%), tutorial participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit explores key features of criminal justice processes and practices, with a critical examination of policing, sentencing, punishment and prison in their historical, social, political and cultural contexts. It considers a range of related concepts and issues, including the expansion of punishment in society and post-release life.
CRIM2603 Current Issues in Criminal Justice
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000 level in Criminology or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Socio-Legal Studies or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Sociology or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Social Policy Assessment: 1x1000wd critical analysis (20%), 1x2000wd research essay (40%), 1x1500wd take home exercise (30%), participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit considers some of the most recent and topical issues of crime and justice in Australia and elsewhere. It examines these in historical perspective and critically assesses them in the context of both contemporary and longstanding debates over criminal justice in politics, policy and criminological research.
Selective
CRIM2604 Race, Law and Justice
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000 level in Sociology or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Socio-Legal Studies or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Criminology Prohibitions: SLSS2604 Assessment: 1x1000wd critical analysis (20%), 1x2000wd research essay (40%), 1x1500wd take home exercise (30%), tutorial participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit will examine histories and continuing legacies of colonialism and racialisation and their interaction with legal systems and criminalisation. Topics covered could include dispossession and theft of sovereignty in settler colonial nations, structural racism and its relation to law, racialised policing and profiling, mass incarceration policies and movements by Indigenous peoples and people of colour to achieve social and legal justice.
SCLG2623 Sociology of Terror
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 1000 level in Sociology or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Socio-Legal Studies or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Criminology Assessment: 1x1500wd essay (30%), 1x3000wd essay (60%), tutorial participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit examines the relationship between terrorism and globalisation. Explores themes of massacre, ethnic cleansing, and terrorism in the context of social uncertainty and crises in nation states. Examines the production of victims and the process of cultural symbolisation of the body and the new social and political imaginaries emerging. Examines the uses of victimhood in trying to escape terror and achieve reconciliation. Draws on the work of Scarry, Kristeva, Appadurai, Nordstrom, Foucault, Zulaika and Taussig.
3000 level units of study
Core
CRIM3601 Medico-Legal and Forensic Criminology
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in Criminology or 12 credit points at 2000 level in Socio-legal Studies Prohibitions: SLSS2603 Assessment: 1x1000wd equivalent presentation (20%), 1x2000wd research essay (50%), 1x1500wd take home exercise (30%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit of study examines the relationship between crime, law, medicine and science. It focuses on criminal detection practices, death investigation systems, the coroner's office, autopsies and socio-legal management of the dead body, human tissue and organ controversies, and the role of medicine, science and psychology in criminal justice.
CRIM3602 Crime, Media and Culture
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in Criminology or 12 credit points at 2000 level in Socio-legal Studies Prohibitions: SLSS2605 Assessment: 1x1000wd equivalent presentation (20%), 1x2000wd research essay (50%), 1x1500wd take home exercise (30%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit examines criminological approaches that explore intersections between criminal justice, law, media forms and cultural dynamics, including in the areas of moral panics, media trials, crime fear, cultural criminology, popular culture, serial killing, female criminality, surveillance, policing protest, organised crime, and terrorism.
CRIM3603 Crime Research and Policy
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr seminar/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in Criminology or 12 credit points at 2000 level in Socio-Legal Studies Assessment: 1x1000wd annotated bibliography (20%), 1x1500wd pilot study (30%), 1x3500wd final research project (50%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit builds on previous knowledge and understanding of criminological theories and methods and issues in criminal justice and crime policy to enable students to conduct an original piece of criminological research, and/or design and appraise crime policy in Australia or elsewhere.
Selective
SCLG3608 Sociology of Deviance and Difference
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in Sociology Prohibitions: SCLG2608 or SCLG2523 or SCLG2004 Assessment: 1x1500wd research essay (30%), 1x2500wd take-home exercise (40%), 500wd equivalent discussion posts (20%), participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit of study focuses on social understandings of 'deviance' and 'difference.' Covering various theories, the unit addresses how deviance is constructed and regulated, and how the idea of the 'abnormal' is central to social debate on a wide range of issues, such as obesity, disability, extreme body modification, and mental health.
SCLG3702 Social Inquiry: Quantitative Methods
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr lab/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in Sociology or 12 credit points of (HSBH1003 or OCCP2087 or OCCP2088 or OCCP2085 or OCCP1097 or OCCP1096) Prohibitions: SCLG2632 or SCLG3603 Assessment: 1x2hr final exam (40%), 2x1250wd equivalent research report (60%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This unit enables students to acquire skills in a range of quantitative research methods in the social sciences. They learn about censuses and surveys as foundational methods of quantitative research, then move to statistical analyses of quantitative data. No prior university-level mathematical training is assumed, though a basic grasp of simple algebra acquired through upper-level study of maths at high school is expected.
SLSS3602 Human Rights: Law, Policy and Protest
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2hr lecture/week, 1x1hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: 12 credit points at 2000 level in Socio-Legal Studies or 12 credit points at 2000 level in Criminology Prohibitions: SCLG2624 Assessment: 1x1500wd minor essay (30%), 1x3000wd major essay (60%), required participation (10%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
Global human rights and the idea of 'one humanity' became politically possible with the end of the Cold War. This unit explores the production of the human rights system as a top down process of legalisation, institutionalisation, policy development and intervention and the bottom up process of victim claim-making, collective mobilisation and transnational advocacy.
Interdisciplinary project units of study
If you are completing two majors and both of your majors are from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, please select the Interdisciplinary Impact unit of study for your first major, and the Industry and Community Project unit of study for your second major.
If you are completing two majors but only one of your majors is from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, please select the Interdisciplinary Impact unit of study for that major.
If you are completing one major only and that major is from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, please select the Interdisciplinary Impact unit of study for your major.
FASS3999 Interdisciplinary Impact
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Intensive December,Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: 1hr lecture/performance event week for 5 weeks 2hr workshop per week for 10 weeks 2hr online learning modules for 5 weeks Prerequisites: Completion of at least 90 credit points Assessment: 1x1000wd disciplinary mapping exercise (20%), 1x1500wd / 10 min team presentation (30%), 1x2000wd critical reflection (35%), participation and engagement (15%). Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Block mode
Note: Department permission required for enrolmentin the following sessions:Intensive December
Interdisciplinarity is a key skill in fostering agility in life and work. This unit provides learning experiences that build students' skills, knowledge and understanding of the application of their disciplinary background to interdisciplinary contexts. In this unit, students will work in teams and develop interdisciplinarity skills through problem-based learning projects responding to 'real world problems'.
CRIM3999 Interdisciplinary Impact
This unit of study is not available in 2022
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Refer to the unit of study outline https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Intensive December,Semester 1,Semester 2 Prerequisites: Completion of at least 90 credit points Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
Note: Department permission required for enrolmentin the following sessions:Intensive December
Interdisciplinarity is a key skill in fostering agility in life and work. This unit provides learning experiences that build students' skills, knowledge and understanding of the application of their disciplinary background to interdisciplinary contexts. In this unit, students will work in teams and develop interdisciplinarity skills through problem-based learning projects responding to 'real world problems'.
CRIM3998 Industry and Community Project
Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Session: Intensive February,Intensive July,Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Prerequisites: 72 credit points Corequisites: Interdisciplinary Impact in any major Assessment: Please refer to the unit of study outline for individual sessions https://www.sydney.edu.au/units Mode of delivery: Normal (lecture/lab/tutorial) day
This interdisciplinary unit provides students with the opportunity to address complex problems identified by industry, community, and government organisations, and gain valuable experience in working across disciplinary boundaries. In collaboration with a major industry partner and an academic lead, students integrate their academic skills and knowledge by working in teams with students from a range of disciplinary backgrounds. This experience allows students to research, analyse and present solutions to a real-world problem, and to build on their interpersonal and transferable skills by engaging with and learning from industry experts and presenting their ideas and solutions to the industry partner.