Postgraduate - UnitAPG5264 - Criminal behaviours and enterprises: Individuals, groups and organisations

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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12 points, SCA Band 1, 0.250 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Offered	Not offered in 2015
Coordinator(s)	Dr Alistair Harkness

Synopsis

This unit examines the complexity of criminal behaviours and the range of criminological theories espoused in order to explain such diverse behaviours. Humans are rule-making and rule-enforcing beings, but not all of us conform to these rules. Many violate the rules and are subject to sanctions and punishment. Individual, group and organisational criminal behaviours and enterprises are examined in this unit. A sophisticated analysis of criminal behaviours includes exploration of biological, psychological and social explanations of crime and the interactionist tradition including differential association theory. Crowd disorders and street gang behaviours will be examined. Organisational and institutional criminal behaviours extend from white-collar and corporate criminal activity to the dynamics of political crimes of violence, corruption and human rights violations that can be committed by the state and against the state. The unit involves study of definitional and conceptual issues, causes, methods of control and the effects of such organisational criminal behaviour. The unit examines the legal controls and responses by governments and other agencies in order to curb and prevent criminal behaviours of individuals, groups and organisations.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit, students are expected to have developed:

an understanding of definitions of criminal behaviour, including an awareness that the law is not static and changes over time
the ability to identify the key characteristics of criminal behaviours and criminal enterprises
knowledge about the core theoretical debates and issues of criminal behaviours that focus on individuals, groups and organisations
the ability to identify traits about the nature of individuals, groups and organisations that engage in criminal activity
an appreciation of the various models available for explaining the relationship between criminality, the individual and society
an awareness of the contribution of the criminal behaviour theories to criminal justice policy and practice
an understanding of what it means to be a victim of criminal behaviour instigated by individual, group or organisation
the ability to design and communicate policy concepts clearly and logically about individual, group and organisational criminal behaviours.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 100%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 288 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Alistair Harkness

Prohibitions

ATS4264