Contemporary Issues in Criminal Justice - SPY00042I
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Semester 1 2025-26 |
Module aims
This module will explore the challenges and issues facing the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales in the 21st century. After briefly exploring the importance of historical context specifically from the 1980s onwards and developments such as the New Penology, New Labour and the shift in the Criminal Justice System's ethos towards individualised punishment, the module explores key issues facing the Criminal Justice System in the contemporary era. Framed within a broader social, economic, cultural and political context, these issues include prisons in the era of austerity, marketisation and the short-lived privatisation of the probation service, policing during the Covid-19 pandemic, and how the Criminal Justice System overwhelmingly deals with the criminal activity of individuals from the most marginalised and deprived communities who often cause various forms of harm. Accordingly, you will learn about the different institutions of the justice system including the police, prisons, courts and probation service and some of the core issues that they have to deal with on a daily basis.
Module learning outcomes
1.Students will be able to critically analyse key contemporary issues
facing the criminal justice system in England and Wales.
2.Students will be able to situate the criminal justice system’s core
problems within the context of relevant national historical, social,
cultural and economic changes, placing particular emphasis on the
importance of politics.
3.Students will be able to critically
understand the harmful impact of crime on victims, communities and
society more broadly.
4.Students will be able to evaluate various
social, public and criminal justice policies to determine their impact
on either amplifying and/or ameliorating the criminal justice system’s
key problems.
Module content
Week One: A Historical Introduction
Week Two: Penal
Politics
Week Three: Punishing the Poor or Those That Harm?
Week Four: Prisons, Austerity and Crisis
Week Five: Drugs in
Prison
Week Six: Policing in England and Wales
Week Seven:
Policing During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Week Eight: The Courts
Week Nine: Marketisation
Week Ten: Women in the Criminal Justice
System
Week Eleven: Optional Assessment Drop-In
Indicative assessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100.0 |
Special assessment rules
None
Indicative reassessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 100.0 |
Module feedback
Feedback will be given in accordance with the University Policy on feedback in the Guide to Assessment as well as in line with the School policy.
Indicative reading
Casey, L (2023) An Independent Review into the standards of behaviour
and internal culture of the Metropolitan police service. London:
Metropolitan Police.
Crawford, A (2024) Vulnerability and
Policing: Rethinking the Role and Limits of the Police. The Political
Quarterly. 95(3): 431-441.
Deering, J & Feilzer, M (2015)
Privatising Probation: Is transforming Rehabilitation the End of the
Probation Ideal? Bristol: Policy Press.
Farrall, S & Gray, E
(2024) The Politics of Crime, Punishment and Justice. London:
Routledge.
Gooch, K (2025) Prison Violence: The Search for
Recognition and Respect. New York: Springer.
Greenfield, V &
Paoli, L (2025) Reaching beyond criminal justice to justice: Orienting
criminology and criminal policy toward harm. Criminology &
Criminal Justice.
Wacquant, L (2009) Punishing the Poor: The
Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham: Duke University
Press.
Westaby, C Ainslie, S Fowler, A & Phillips, J (2025)
‘You’re trying to juggle everything’: Understanding the consequences
of emotional labour for senior probation officers in England and
Wales. European Journal of Criminology. 22(5): 785-805.
Whitehead, P (2015) Reconceptualising the Moral Economy of Criminal
Justice. New York: Springer.
Whitehead, P (2016) Modernizing and
Transforming Criminal Justice in England and Wales, 1997-2015. Federal
Sentencing Reporter. 28(4): 293-302.
Wincup, E (2013)
Understanding Crime and Social Policy. Bristol: Policy Press.
Winlow, S & Hall, S (2016) Realist Criminology and its
Discontents. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social
Democracy. 5(3): 80-94.