| CODE | CRI1015 | ||||||||||||
| TITLE | Myths and Realities of Crime: Societal Perspectives | ||||||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 01 - Year 1 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 5 | ||||||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 4 | ||||||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Criminology | ||||||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | Crime is viewed as an enticing and attractive phenomenon fueled both by an ever active media reporting cycle, futuristic CSI series, on-line gaming and fiction that has blurred the realities faced by criminologist and enforcement personnel. The study-unit will describe the different worlds that forge these two perspective, deconstruct what is real, what is perceived as real and what is construed as fiction. It enables students to acquire a grounded approach to approaching criminological theory and practice from a theoretical and practical approach as against a media-driven approach, whilst understanding the need to base one's conclusion of fact. The study-unit also delves into virtuality and the potential worlds that criminologists may operate within in future scenarios and the need to understand and describe potential future crimes that have yet to be thought of as a preparatory exercise for the creation of enforcement preparation and legislative change. Study-unit Aims: i) to familiarise students with the opposing worlds of reality and virtuality; ii) to give students the opportunity to compare and contrast different reports and how they perceive a contemporary offence; iii) to familiarise students with the issues of real, opinionated reported, bias, fiction and fantastic reporting; iv) to empower students to review and debate past-present and future offences; v) to enable students to discern between myth and reality; vi) to enable students to deconstruct perspectives and elicit facts. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: i) differentiate between reality and fiction in crime reporting; ii) categorise the differences between reality and virtuality; iii) deconstruct a report; iv) realise the realities faced by enforcement officers in interpreting reporting inclusive of investigative reporting; v) draft processes that would help students to construct potential virtualities and future scenarios that could create new offences. 2. Skills By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: i) carry out reviews of traditional and digital reports and elicit the facts from fiction; ii) differentiate between reality, fiction and virtuality; iii) draft a report describing a crime and a fictional one; iv) look outside the box and identify new forms of crime; v) temploy easily accessible social media tools to identify offending episodes and also to help identify best approaches to reduce such offending. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: - Carrabine E (2008) Crime, Culture and the Media, Polity Press. - Garcia V., and Arkerson G. S (2018) Crime, Media and Reality – Examining Mixed Messages About Crime and Justice in Popular Media, Rowman & Littlefield. - Hayes M R, Luther, K., #Crime(2018) Palgrave Macmillan. - Muraskin, R. and Domash, S.F., (2006), Crime and the Media: Headlines vs. Reality, Pearson. - Surette R. (2018) Media, Crime and Criminal Justice; Images, Realities and Policies. Fifth Edition, Cengage Learning. - Jewkes, Y., (2015), Media and Crime (Key Approaches to Criminology), SAGE Publications Ltd. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Fieldwork, Lectures & Project | ||||||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Pierre Cassar |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2024/5. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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