Student guide Facoltà di Giurisprudenza A.A. 2010/11

The aim of the course is to introduce students to the discipline of criminology. After an introduction to the historical development of such a discipline, from the historical writings of criminal law reformers in the Eighteenth Century to the more recent foundation of a scientific criminology, the course will deal with  modern criminology as a composite, eclectic, multidisciplinary enterprise, made up of a body of accredited and systematically transmitted forms of knowledge, approved procedures and techniques of investigation.  Major emphasis will be placed on issues related to white-collar offences and their power to undermine the basis of trust which holds society together. Particular attention will be devoted to the analysis of the harmful activities of corporations which endanger the safety of workers and consumers, and have a wide impact on public health and the environment.

Introductory part of the course.

1.  Criminology: history and theory (the classical school of criminology, the positivist school, victimology, criminological psychology).

2.  Criminology and literature: white collar crimes in Twentieth-Century literature and cinema.

3.  Media coverage of white-collar crimes.

 

Part one.

1.  White collar crime and criminology.

2.  Analysis of Sutherland’s definition of white-collar crime as “a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation”.

 

Part two.

1.  Patterns of white-collar and corporate crime (fraud, insider dealing, corruption, healthcare crimes, consumer offences, environmental crimes).

 

Part three.

1.  Employment offences.

1.1   Occupational health and safety.

1.2   Mobbing and bossing at the workplace.

 

Part four.

1.  White-collar crime and victimization.

There will be an oral exam at the end of the course. Detailed information on evaluation criteria will be provided at the beginning of the course.

Vold, G. B., Bernard, T. J., Snipes, J. B., Theoretical criminology, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, 5^th ed.

Croall, H., Understanding white collar crime, Open University Press, Buckingham, 2001.

 

Further reading materials (cases, excerpts, readings) will be provided by the lecturer during the course.