Crime, Criminology, and Critique (CRIM10001)

Criminology is the study of crime, social harm and how we respond to it. This introductory subject is concerned with the questions: what is crime? Who is the criminal? Criminologists have traditionally sought to understand and explain the complex causes and motivations for crime and how categorisations of crime can change according to time, place and politics.

With each topic, students will critically reflect on the ways that crime is constructed and popularised. Given the localised context of colonial Australia, we pay particular attention to crime as a settler colonial construct. The subject requires that students read and think critically about their own assumptions, media representations, and the ways that powerful groups define, measure and regulate crime. By examining a range of topics including youth crime, street crime, crime in the home and crimes of the powerful, this subject will consider how understandings of crime inform and produce a range of state responses and varied experiences of justice/injustice.