Curriculum Information

This 20-credit module covers four broad topic areas:

Deconstructing Violence and Homicide
The module begins by deconstructing the phenomena of violence in general and homicide in particular, attuning students to the socially constructed nature of these ‘crime’ categories. Students will be encouraged to think critically about the legal categories of violence/homicide and to reconsider their boundaries through consideration of broader societal harms. This will be achieved, in part, by a deep dive into corporate violence.

Theories of Violence and Homicide.
A range of disciplines will be drawn upon to illustrate the diverse perspectives that have been drawn upon to account for violent crime, including biological, psychological, sociological, and integrated perspectives. Students will be encouraged to think critically about which theoretical perspectives are most useful in understanding particular forms of violent crime and homicide and to appreciate the strengths and limitations of micro, meso and macro explanations of violence.

Reducing and Preventing Violence and Homicide
Armed with a knowledge and understanding of the various forms that homicide takes, the conditions that give rise to its emergence and the different theoretical explanations that exist, the focus moves to consideration of how such knowledge can inform prevention and reduction policy and practice. Students are introduced to primary, secondary and tertiary crime prevention approaches and encouraged to consider the challenges in applying these approaches to contemporary violent crime problems.

The Police Investigation of Homicide
A critical appraisal of homicide investigative process and practice including detective sense-making and case construction and the causes of investigative error or failure. Building on earlier themes of social construction (week 1) we consider how police and prosecutors construct the case for the prosecution in the context of an adversarial justice system, and the kinds of factors that influence the presentation of ‘facts’. Finally, we consider the challenges confronting police in adapting to new technologies notably the growth of digital forensics.