Courses - Faculty of Arts
Criminology
Stage I
Big Ideas in Criminology
Introduces a range of big ideas in criminology that inform contemporary research and justice, both locally and globally. Presents the main concepts and theoretical foundations that inform the field. Critically analyses topical issues and debates related to crime, justice, deviance and social harm.
Restriction: CRIM 201
Stage II
Cultural Criminology
Exposes students to the major concepts and methodological approaches within cultural criminology, a field that is unique in its exploration of the meanings associated with crime and deviance. The course also considers the broader contexts of crime, how powerful groups and media influence criminal justice policies, and the relationship between popular discourses and the nature of social control.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed from BA courses
Contemporary Issues in Punishment
The focus is on contemporary issues in punishment, considering both its purposes and effectiveness. The course explores a range of perspectives drawing on longstanding criminological, sociological and philosophical literatures.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed from BA courses
The Criminal Mind: Crime and Individual Differences
Examines the phenomena of crime and punishment from a psychological perspective. Particular attention is paid to psychological explanations of crime, the relationship between mental illness and crime, and the role of psychology in law enforcement, the courts, and corrections.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed from BA courses
Critical Studies in Policing
Explores policing in New Zealand and beyond, including its legal and theoretical underpinnings. Critically examine media representations of the police, policing and inequality; police culture, power and accountability; the effects of human rights claims on policing methods and emerging threats to policing both locally and globally.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed from BA courses
Crime, Media and Society
The relationship between crime and the media is complex and contradictory. This course investigates this relationship by encouraging students to develop an understanding of how the media help to influence the public views of crime and criminalisation. It will do this by focusing on media portrayals of crime and criminal behaviour, media effects, and theories of media and communication.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed from BA courses
Criminology: Indigenous and Global
Are we all equal before the law? Or are groups treated differently by the criminal justice system? With particular emphasis on indigenous peoples in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, this course examines the impact of differential practices on inequalities and collective efforts to achieve social change. Concepts of restorative justice are central to this course.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed from BA or BGlobalSt courses
Restriction: CRIM 302
Hate Crime
Provides an overview of ‘hate’ and prejudice-motivated crime using a variety of criminological perspectives. Examines the causes, consequences and manifestations of hate, as well as the social context in which hate crimes occur. Engages with questions around the impact of and responses to hate crime, as well as the link between online and offline hate.
Prerequisite: 60 points passed from BA courses
Stage III
Issues in Criminal Justice
Discusses the workings of the criminal justice system and explores and contextualises classical and emergent approaches to criminal justice, including their legal underpinnings. Practical and theoretical issues will be considered using a case study approach. Emphasis is given to the developing synthesis of criminal and social justice.
Prerequisite: 90 points passed from BA courses, including 30 points at Stage II
Key Issues in Restorative Justice
Provides a critical analysis of the restorative justice process as a response to offender behaviour, which will aid an understanding of its place within the wider criminal justice system. A variety of perspectives on restorative justice will be considered, as well as the various practices associated with it, and its effectiveness according to different stakeholders.
Prerequisite: 90 points passed in BA courses, including 30 points at Stage II
Victims and Victimology
Explores patterns and theories of victimisation, the position of victims and victimology within criminology, and the representation of victims in the media. Includes case studies of specific types of victimisation such as racial hate crimes and family and sexual violence. Victims’ rights and the position of victims in the criminal justice system and restorative justice will also be examined.
Prerequisite: 90 points passed in BA courses, including 30 points at Stage II
Special Topic
Prerequisite: 90 points passed in BA courses, including 30 points at Stage II
Doing Time: Incarceration and Punishment
Examines punishment and incarceration as a complex social institution informed by a range of social relations and cultural meanings. Explores the way political, social and economic factors shape notions of law and order. Topics include: history of punishment and theories of incarceration, experiences of imprisonment and prison cultures, and various controversial issues in imprisonment, for example, privatisation, the use of solitary confinement, immigration detention, and prison abolition.
Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage II from Criminology, Global Politics and Human Rights
Restriction: SOCIOL 337
Critical Research in Criminology
Introduces critical research methodology. Begins with the problems of epistemology (knowledge) and ontology (reality), then explores data (what is data?) and specific methods of data analysis, such as semiotics, discourse analysis and, amongst others, hermeneutics. Recommended to pursue postgraduate study in criminology.
Prerequisite: 90 points passed from BA courses, including 30 points at Stage II
Paradoxes of Crime Technology
Explores the limits and contradictions of crime prevention technologies. Focuses on the tension between the promises of such technologies and their consequences. Limits are explored via critical analyses of DNA typing, fingerprint comparison, forecasting or prediction, security technologies, and environmental controls, such as ‘target hardening’, ‘guardianship’ and ‘environmental design’.
Prerequisite: 90 points passed from BA courses, including 30 points at Stage II
Postgraduate 700 Level Courses
Research in Criminology
Examines the methods of research frequently employed in the field of criminology, and the various epistemological and ethical questions that arise in criminological research, and the connection between theory and research and quantitative and qualitative analytic strategies. Students will complete a research project under supervision.
Restriction: CRIM 309
Criminological Theory
An examination of classical and contemporary theories of crime, including sociological, psychological, medical, rational-choice and critical perspectives on criminology. Attention will be given to the construction of theory as it is informed by social science research; to the social, cultural and political contexts in which these theories have emerged; and to the influence of theories in criminal justice policies.
Advanced Issues in Penology
A survey of issues in penology, describing and interpreting specific penal reform strategies in terms of their historical, social, political and economic context. An appreciation of the main themes within penology will allow a greater understanding of the role that punishment regimes play in society and specifically in the criminal justice system.
Contemporary Criminology
An examination of critical approaches to the study of crime and crime control. Attention will be given to understanding how these approaches critically assess social problems surrounding crime and crime control strategies; the political, social and historical development of varying critical perspectives; and the ways in which such approaches may lead to changes in criminal justice policies and practices.
State Crime
Considers a range of theoretical approaches to criminal acts committed by state officials in pursuit of their jobs as representatives of the state, and state organisational deviance that involves the violation of human rights and is liable to sanction. The course offers a series of case studies of such state crime.
Special Topic: Quantitative Criminology
Focuses on criminological quantitative data, and its analysis and interpretation. Students will engage with the basics of survey research and will be guided through statistical techniques to analyse a quantitative dataset. Students gain hands-on experience using software (i.e., SPSS) to run statistical tests, learn how to interpret results, and engage in quantitative reasoning and its application to criminological problems.
Special Topic: Critical Political Economy of Mass Incarceration
In the latter half of the 20th century, the mode of punishment in the capitalist world transformed into one based on imprisonment on an ever-increasing scale. Focusing on the experience of New Zealand, this course applies new developments in Marxist economic science to explain how mass incarceration arose, why capitalism requires it, and how it can be destroyed.
Cybercrime
Exploration of cybercrime and its economic and social impact. The course aims to encourage critical thinking, exploring a range of key theoretical perspectives in criminal justice and their application to cybercrime. It analyses how the Internet may promote criminal behaviour and contribute to the globalisation of crime. It also outlines the challenges of policing cybercrime, evaluating current approaches.
Gender, Crime and Social Control
Advanced study of the importance of examining crime, criminal justice and social control through gendered and intersectional lenses. This course critically analyses traditional explanations for crime drawing on feminist and queer criminological theory before examining the gendered operation of the criminal justice system and other forms of social control, and exploring alternative approaches to tackling gendered social harm.
Restriction: CRIM 303
Research Project
To complete this course students must enrol in CRIM 780 A and B, or CRIM 780
Dissertation - Level 9
To complete this course students must enrol in CRIM 793 A and B, or CRIM 793
Thesis - Level 9
To complete this course students must enrol in CRIM 796 A and B