The definition of particular social problems as crimes, how crime is measured and explained and who are identified as criminals or victims is not straightforward. This unit challenges the commonsense view that accepts at face value that crime can be defined by criminal law or by a conceptual analysis of the harm done. With a discussion of fundamental elements of institutions and practices the unit examines how police, courts and corrections influence processes of criminalisation and victimisation and the societal context in which this occurs.

This unit develops an understanding of the complexity of juvenile crime by addressing the historical, political, cultural and socio-economic factors associated with youth crime, constructions of youth, and, governmental strategies for regulating and preventing juvenile crime. An inter-disciplinary framework is used to develop a critical appreciation of the impacts of the regulation of particular youth groups that are over-represented in the juvenile justice system, including Aboriginal youth and other racial/ethnic minority youth. Lastly, the unit will critically assess a range of official interventions for working with young people within the juvenile justice system.

Contemporary criminological knowledge typically concerns explanations of offending, victimisation, prevention and safety, but debates about these matters also reflect unequal power, social division and exclusion. The unit will focus on the criminological concern with individual offenders and the implications of this for responses to crimes including those of the powerful. Additionally, it will analyse the impacts of the blurred lines between the public and private, the national and global, citizens and aliens, as well as evidence about the expansion of more intensive forms of policing and surveillance in contemporary societies.

In recent decades, models and understanding of gender have become a major way of explaining crime and victimisation. Most obviously, feminist researchers have pioneered studies of the neglected victimisation of women from male violence and the impact of gendered discourses on the criminal justice system. This unit will critically engage with this material and also focus on contemporary accounts of the links between criminal offending and different violent and non-violent masculinities. Lastly, the shifting regulation of different sexualities and their criminalisation will be analysed.

Contemporary societies are replete with images of crime across cultural forms including media, writing, film and television. This unit will examine these depictions of crime in society and moral panic about crime, with a stress on the value of ethnographic studies and a comparison between different theoretical explanations of crime and culture. Additionally, it will focus on accounts of the cultural origins of forms of violence, property crime, drug use and collective disorder as manifestations of social protest, transgression and leisure. Lastly, the unit will critically examine evidence about the culture of criminal justice agencies such as courts and prisons.

This unit introduces major approaches within criminology offering explanations of the causes of crime, with consideration of the impact of such other fields as sociology and ethnography. Its scope ranges from classicism and positivism to the rise of social perspectives in the twentieth century including the Chicago school, strain theory, labelling, Marxism and left realism, feminism, governmentality, risk theory and critical criminology. Final consideration will be given to psychosocial approaches to crime, and the revival of free will and rationality in neo-liberal analyses. These traditions and perspectives will be illustrated by consideration of key research examples.

The demise of corporal punishment and regular use of imprisonment are defining features of control in modern states. This unit provides a historical and sociological examination of models, practices and justifications for punishment and incarceration. It analyses early liberal notions of the social contract, the 'great incarcerations' and criminology's stress on treatment, reform and rehabilitation. It further examines the development of probation and parole systems, decarceration, community corrections, mass imprisonment, and the contemporary control of risk and the 'dangerous'. Additionally, it explores the impact of imprisonment and corrections by such factors as age, social class, racial/ethnic identity, sex/gender, and disability.

This unit will examine historical, theoretical and research material regarding victimisation from crime and the possible means to prevent this. The criminal justice acknowledgment of victims will be analysed in relation to the growth of victim studies, evidence about unreported crime, fear of crime and the relation between patterns of victimisation and social disadvantage. Additionally, the unit will critically focus on contemporary state initiatives to assist victims, lobbying on behalf of specific groups, and how these compare and contrast with the more innovative means of responding to victimisation in both public and private spheres with crime prevention strategies.