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Gender, Crime and Violence (Level 5)

Overview

  • Credit value: 30 credits at Level 5
  • Convenor: Tanya Serisier
  • Assessment: a 1500-word critical media analysis (30%) and 2000-word essay (70%)

Module description

In this module we introduce you to key theories, debates and policy that explore the relationship between gender, criminal behaviour and criminal justice. We provide a critical overview of feminist criminological theory and explore its contribution to, and its challenge of, mainstream criminology. We also seek to emphasise the gendered construction of society, crime and criminal justice and, in so doing, explore key themes related to offending, victimisation, punishment and imprisonment.

Indicative syllabus

  • Thinking gender and crime together
  • Men, masculinities and crime
  • Women, femininities and crime
  • Policing gender
  • Judging gender
  • The gendered prison
  • Victim or offender
  • Intersectionality: sexual violence
  • Intersectionality: sex work and commercial sex
  • Hate crimes, criminalisation, gender and sexuality

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you will:

  • be familiar with and be able to critically evaluate the main empirical and theoretical studies of gender, crime and criminal justice
  • be able to critically assess the problems of mainstream criminological theory and become acquainted with feminist critiques and approaches highlighting the importance of masculinity in explaining crime and criminal justice
  • be able to critically discuss debates surrounding the differential treatment of women and men in the criminal justice system as victims, offenders and professionals
  • understand offending and victimisation patterns by gender, race, age and class
  • understand the relationship between gender, crime and criminal justice and engage in comparative criminological evaluation.