• To introduce students to social studies of crime, offending, and punishment from the eighteenth to the present.
• Encourage students to use and problematise a range of online research tools that facilitate the use of historical data to interrogate criminological theories.
• Introduce students to a range of quantitative and qualitative methodological techniques that underpin such studies including record linkage, prosopography, critical discourse analysis and data visualisation.

(LO1) Ability to problematise narratives of crime and criminal justice, and view offending and punishment as products of particular social, cultural, economic and political contexts

(LO2) Be able to critically use historical evidence to answer contemporary criminological questions and engage with criminological theory.

(LO3) Employ and interrogate online criminal history datasets, and critically consider their advantages and limitations

(LO4) Analyse and present primary research in essay format

(S1) Practical online research skills and evaluation of digitised historical data

(S2) Critical thinking and problem solving (critical analysis)

(S3) Communication (written and visual) - Academic writing (inc. referencing skills)

(S4) Understand and problematise narratives of crime and criminal justice, and view offending and punishment as products of particular social, cultural, economic and political contexts

(S5) Practice a range of digital methodologies and techniques

(S6) Organise and articulate ideas/arguments both in the essay, and in informed contributions to discussions about the criminal justice system in the past

(S7) Critical thinking and problem solving (creative thinking)

(S8) Identify, summarise and comment upon different ways of approaching histories of crime, punishment, and criminal justice

The Syllabus might cover topics such as:

• The Panopticon and the People: Introduction to the History of Crime and Punishment
• Unlocking the Victorian Offender: Digitisation and Criminal Lives
• The Real Artful Dodgers: Youth, Crime, and Imprisonment, 1780- Present.
• Victims or Perpetrators? Female Offending in the Past, Present and Future
• Datamining convict tattoos, 1785-1925
•Gang Crime: Gender, Violence, and Street Life in Liverpool and Manchester
• Viral Victorians: Using the 19th Century Newspapers to explore the Garrotting Panics

Teaching Method 1 - Lecture
Description: Lectures will provide an introduction to debates in crime history and criminology, theoretical approaches, and an awareness of digital humanities and digital social science and how they can relate to critical understanding of crime, justice and punishment today.
Attendance Recorded: no
Notes: The lectures are designed to introduce students to historical case studies, criminological theories, and digital techniques and debates and to direct students to the areas they need to go on to cover in their seminars and independent study through reading, writing and reflection.
Unscheduled Directed Student Hours (time spent away from the timetabled sessions but directed by the teaching staff): Preparation for lectures, seminars, and assessments will all account for the 114 hours of unsupervised independent study

Teaching Method 2 – Interactive workshop
Description: Workshops will be two hours long and take place weekl y to allow for practical introductions to online research and to be able to use of the software alongside a discussion of historical and criminological approaches to offending and imprisonment.
Attendance Recorded: Yes
Notes: Seminars will take place weekly and each session be two hours in duration. This is to allow students to take a hands-on approach to learning and, through the utilization of online databases and open access digital software, and analyse digitised historical crime and punishment data through a range of critical digital techniques. Alongside the practical element of seminars, students will be asked to reflect on their readings and frame their digital work with debates about digitisation, crime history and criminology.

Unscheduled Directed Student Hours (time spent away from the timetabled sessions but directed by the teaching staff): Preparation for lectures, seminars, and assessments will all account for the 114 hours of unsupervised independent stud y.