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Criminal Justice Law Enforcement is probably going to be of interest to people who are
concerned about the operation of the criminal justice system. Largely the police, our court
system and the CPS, the Crown Prosecution Service and the impact that the decisions
made by these bodies have on suspect populations and also any potential there is for reform.
The module itself examines the way criminal law works in practice and how it?s operationalised
by these criminal justice actors on our streets. It will be using theory and models of criminal
justice to try to gain a deeper and better understanding of what it is that these criminal
justice agents are doing with suspect populations. It?s important because they have a broad range
of discretionary powers which are to an extent constrained by law.
Ok so we?re going to be looking at case law and legislation because that sets the parameters
within which these criminal justice actors work. The course engages with the policies
and practices which essentially influence and govern the decision making of these bodies
and this is important because it?s essentially the processes and the decisions made by the
CPS and our courts and the police which ultimately lead to someone being labelled authoritatively
as criminal. So, for example, what we would be interested
in is whether factors such as stereotyping by the police influences their decision making
on the streets in relation to stop and search and the exercise of various powers, that would
be a good example. We also look at whether gender also impacts on those types of decisions.
So how the law itself governs discretionary decision making is going to become a focus
of the course. Some of you may have come across the terms
due process, human rights, crime-control perhaps. Well we?re going to be trying to grapple with
those concepts and see how they can help us better understand what is happening on our
streets and in our courtrooms. So the course itself is taught by two-hour
seminars and within those seminars we expect students to come prepared but we will be engaging
in debate, discussion, we will be watching some videos and essentially trying to together
grapple with the issues.