Are you interested in helping young people study English? This module will introduce you to teaching creative writing in secondary schools by providing training in effective classroom management and guidance on designing lesson plans for studying fiction and poetry. With a fellow student on the course, you will go on a placement in a secondary school in Southampton where you will help pupils develop their creativity and their knowledge of literary culture. Throughout the module, you will be encouraged to reflect on the critical and practical problems you encounter teaching, and to consider how the National Curriculum supports creativity in the classroom.
The module will start by defining the concept of data analytics and demonstrating the processes in three steps: data pre-processing, data mining and post-processing. Next, we will zoom into the data mining step and distinguish three types of data mining: descriptive/diagnostic data analytics (e.g. clustering, association rules), predictive data analytics (e.g. regression and classification), and prescriptive data analytics. The module will then illustrate how machine learning models can be successfully used to develop different application areas with a focus on retail credit risk. The theoretical concepts will be illustrated using real-life application cases and the relevant software.
We often take it for granted that one job of the state is to catch and punish murderers, thieves, and fraudsters. But we shouldn’t take this for granted. Criminal punishment is one of the worse things the state is allowed to do to us, as it intentionally creates suffering and deprives people of their liberty. What, if anything, can justify such a practice? Many different justifications have been offered by philosophers and legal theorists. Some claim punishment justified because of its consequences, some on the grounds that criminals should get their just deserts. Others have claimed punishment is justified because of the message it communicates to the criminal or to wider society. Do any of these justifications work, or should the practice be abolished? And if the practice of criminal punishment is justified, what are the principles that determine who should get punished, and for what? Should we only punish those who cause harm, or is it justified to also punish those who merely attempt or conspire to commit crimes? Should we only punish people who harm others deliberately, or is it also legitimate to punish those who do so unawares? This module will look at questions like these, drawing on a combination of both philosophy and criminal law theory.
This course will span the period c.1688-c.1840, beginning with the reforms of the criminal code introduced following the Glorious Revolution, known as the ‘Bloody Code’, and concluding in the mid-nineteenth century with the introduction of the police force under Peel and the first acts removing capital punishment from felonies. You will be asked to consider both the nature and incidence of crime and whether historians’ research confirms contemporary perceptions of the lawlessness of society. You will be asked to address whether a poor man’s [and woman’s] system of justice operated in the eighteenth century or whether the criminal law solely acted as the ‘ideology’ of the ruling classes. You will be introduced to a wide range of sources for examining the history of crime and punishment, both qualitative and quantitative. A variety of legal material will be drawn upon; indictment and deposition records from Quarter Sessions, Assize Circuits, the Kings Bench and the very rich Old Bailey Sessions Papers and Newgate Calendar. Alongside this the writings of contemporaries such as Defoe, Fielding, Smollett will be considered. Criminal biographies, judges’ notebooks, newspapers, canting dictionaries and satirical images also provide interesting and informative sources.
This course will span the period c.1688-c.1840, beginning with the reforms of the criminal code introduced following the Glorious Revolution, known as the ‘Bloody Code’, and concluding in the mid-nineteenth century with the introduction of the police force under Peel and the first acts removing capital punishment from felonies. You will be asked to consider why the legal system moved away from capital punishment towards firstly the transportation and ultimately the imprisonment of felons and what led to the establishment of the police force. You will be introduced to a wide range of sources for examining the history of crime and punishment, both qualitative and quantitative. In looking at punishment, the ideas of Beccaria, Howard and Bentham will be examined in addition to prison and Home Office records. The material of Colquhoun and Peel form the basis of a consideration of early policing. A final component of the course will be to address modern representations of the history of crime and punishment through the watching of films and documentaries (ranging from Dick Turpin to Blackadder) to examine and deconstruct some of the myths that have grown up around the period and subject.
This module examines crime and criminal law in its broader cultural and historical context. It focuses on the strategies and techniques that lawyers, judges and commentators use to persuade others to their viewpoint, and that give us the fascinating stories, characters and ideas that make up criminal law. We look at the way that these stories and characters have been derived from outside of law: from fiction, drama and art, and which have in turn guided the development of our laws and key legal judgments. The module involves discussion of certain offences, e.g. murder, manslaughter, piracy, rape, as well as important broader issues, e.g. criminal justice as a spectacle (what does modern justice owe to visual art and theatrical performance?); 'hot' and 'cold'- blooded killing (what is the moral and legal distinction?); justice and revenge (what's the difference?); the role of metaphors such as the 'scales of justice' (what does criminal justice owe to ancient practices of trade and commerce?).
Crime detection is prolific on television; a topic discussed across news and current affairs programming, documentaries, reality TV and, not the least, numerous crime dramas. This module examines different type of crime investigation narratives on television, providing you with tools for analysing the dynamic and contested cultural roles of crime TV. We will engage with diverse theoretical approaches to the relationship between crime detection and television, enabling your active participation in both popular and academic debates on this topic. In order to unpick the diverse cultural meanings that saturate and circulate different programmes, we will study their wider socio-historical contexts as well as cultural reception. Doing so, we pay particular attention to the specific aesthetic forms, narrative structures, figures, settings and themes that characterises televisual portrayals of different crime investigation practices, but we also consider genre linkages to literature, radio, cinema, and digital culture. Approaching the study of crime TV from the unique perspectives of film and television studies, this module will also highlight television’s contributions to the wider discursive construction of moving-image creation as a key technology of detection in modern culture.
What is the purpose of the criminal justice system? What is the appropriate role of the police? How have efforts to rehabilitate offenders changed over recent decades? How are political priorities re-shaping criminal justice? These are some of the questions that are central to 'Criminal Justice'. This module explores the policy and practice of key criminal justice institutions, including the police, probation and prisons. It will consider the duties and activities of these institutions, and the challenges that they face in an era of rapid change. The module will do so in light of key theoretical debates regarding the purpose and nature of criminal justice. In summary, this module will enable students to explore the roles and historical trajectory of key criminal justice institutions and to critically analyse their appropriate future direction. Teaching is informed by relevant academic staff's published and ongoing research.
This module provides an introduction to the substantive criminal law, and to fundamental aspects of criminal law in its broader criminal justice and societal context. It will examine the use of criminal law, and its associated processes, as a mode of governing individual and social conduct. It will provide: a critical introduction to principles and practices of criminalisation; a critical introduction to the doctrinal 'building blocks' of criminal liability and responsibility, and the opportunity to apply these "building block" principles, as well as the contextual material, to selected case studies. It also focuses on providing a foundation in the key LLB Programme and QA Law Benchmark skills learning outcomes of: 'developing an ability to produce a synthesis of relevant doctrinal and policy issues, presentation of a reasoned choice between alternative solutions and critical judgement of the merits of particular arguments.'; and 'developing the ability to apply knowledge and understanding to offer evidenced conclusions, addressing complex actual or hypothetical problems.'
This version of Criminal Law is delivered for you if you are studying the LLB JD Pathway, the LLB Accelerated programme or the LLB Law with Psychology programme. This module provides an introduction to the substantive criminal law, and to fundamental aspects of criminal law in its broader criminal justice and societal context. It will examine the use of criminal law, and its associated processes, as a mode of governing individual and social conduct. It will provide: a critical introduction to principles and practices of criminalization; a critical introduction to the doctrinal building blocks of criminal liability and responsibility, and the opportunity to apply these building block principles, as well as the contextual material, to selected case studies. It also focuses on providing a foundation in the key LLB Programme and QA Law Benchmark skills learning outcomes of: developing an ability to produce a synthesis of relevant doctrinal and policy issues, presentation of a reasoned choice between alternative solutions and critical judgement of the merits of particular arguments.; and developing the ability to apply knowledge and understanding to offer evidenced conclusions, addressing complex actual or hypothetical problems.
This module provides you with a critical overview of criminological theory since 1980. It builds on and extends the foundational curriculum which introduced students to the field of criminology.
This module encourages you to take an in-depth look at the way psychology has been used to explain and control crime. We will explore the way psychological principles can be applied to such issues as violence, murder, serial killing and the role of the courts. You will be given the change to critically reflect on both the topics covered and your developing understanding of the subject through lectures and seminar activities.
