Advanced Criminal Law and Sentencing

Overview

The aim of this unit is to provide students with an understanding of sentencing law principles and practices across Australia. It provides students with a deeper knowledge of criminal law, especially the rules and principles relating to criminal appeals and the criminal principles in each Australian jurisdiction. The unit focuses on the evolving nature of sentencing law, with an emphasis on appropriate and necessary innovations in this area.

Unit learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

1. Conduct effective legal research of both primary and secondary materials
2. Explain contemporary debates about the appropriate manner in which to deal with criminal offenders
3. Explain the political, social and economic influences that shape criminal and sentencing law
4. Analyse the efficacy of the law to attain the key sentencing objectives in the form of deterrence, rehabilitation and community protection
5. Develop recommendations about innovative and technological changes that should be made to sentencing law

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Assessment

Content

• The aims and role of the criminal law
• Key legislative criminal law provisions in each Australian jurisdiction
• The objectives of sentencing law and practice
• The principal of proportionality
• Aggravating sentencing factors Privacy and institutional/social media
• Mitigating sentencing considerations
• Imprisonment
• Intermediate sanctions
• Mandatory sentencing
• Indigenous offenders
• Innovations to sentencing law
• Sentencing and technology