Criminology: Theory and Practice

Week 4 Developing Training Materials
May 15, 2020
Computational mathematics (MATLAB/SciLab)
May 15, 2020

Criminology: Theory and Practice

 

This essay has two equally weighted parts:

? Part A: application of criminological theories to a criminal event

? Part B: critical analysis of a criminological theory.

Part A: You are required to find a newspaper article published in The Age or The Australian

reporting on a criminal event. The article must not be a summary of a previous criminal event. Use

the Factiva database in the Swinburne library to find a link to your article and include this in your

essay (there is a tutorial on how to use Factiva within the Assessment 2 information in the unit

Blackboard site).

You will summarise the criminal event and explain the causes of the incident using three

criminological theories of your choice. There is one caveat: the theories must span the range of

theories discussed throughout the semester (i.e. all three theories cannot be sociological in

nature). Be sure to include the principle tenets of each theory as they relate to the criminal event.

Part B: Critically analyse one criminological theory (not used in Part A). Find one journal article

that supports your theory and one that does not support your theory €“ you must use only a peerreviewed

journal article such as Criminology, Criminology and Public Policy, Justice Quarterly, or

Police Quarterly. You are not limited to these journals, but are specifically restricted from using

Wikipedia or similar websites.

Submit copies of these articles as PDFs with your essay. In your own words, describe the theory

and then summarise the arguments made in both articles. Be sure to outline the principle tenets

that were supported and those that were not. After analysing the theory, state concluding thoughts

with accompanying rationale: should this theory be accepted or rejected when creating crime

control policies?