Handbook : Unit informationEdith Cowan University

School: Arts and Humanities

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

• Unit Title

  Criminal Underworlds: Crime and Society Since 1800

• Unit Code

  HIS3105

• Year

  2016

• Enrolment Period

  1

• Version

  2

• Credit Points

  15

• Full Year Unit

  N

• Mode of Delivery

  On Campus
  

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Description

Popular interest in crime and criminal underworlds has flourished since the nineteenth century to such an extent that crime is one of the most read, watched and researched genres in popular culture and history. This crime history unit examines the networks, organisations and sub-cultures of criminal underworlds since 1800. Underworlds reveal much about society at the time, particularly social, political and legal perceptions of crime and constructions of criminal underworlds through media, film and television. Through the use of case studies, students will gain an understanding of different individuals and groups making up criminal underworlds and organised crime. These are the worlds of Victorian thieves, body snatchers, bootleggers, American mobsters, post-WWII British gangsters and modern transnational organised crime networks.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. Analyse historical evidence, scholarship and changing representations of the past.
2. Construct an evidence-based argument or narrative in audio, digital, oral, visual or written form.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of a variety of conceptual approaches to interpreting the past.
4. Demonstrate an understanding of at least one period or culture of the past.
5. Examine historical issues by undertaking research according to the methodological and ethical conventions of the discipline.
6. Identify and interpret a wide variety of secondary and primary materials.
7. Identify key aspects of notable criminal underworlds and organised crime since 1800 and locate criminal underworlds within the broader field of crime history.

Unit Content

1. Crime, criminals and the police in the Victorian Era.
2. Criminal underworlds, the media and popular culture.
3. Investigating organised crime.
4. Prohibition and underworlds.
5. The Chicago and New York Mob.
6. Transnational organised crime.
7. Victorian underworld thieves.

Additional Learning Experience Information

Lectures, tutorials, documentary and film.

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant Board of Examiners.

Text References

• Thomas, D. (1998). The Victorian underworld. New York: NYU Press.
• Taylor, D. (1998). Crime, policing and punishment in England, 1750-1914. New York: St. Martin's Press.
• Rafter, N. (2006). Shots in the mirror: Crime films and society. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Richardson, R. (2001). Death, dissection and the destitute. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Newton, M. (2008). Gangs and crime. New York: Infobase Publishing.
• Marsh, I. (2009). Crime, justice and the media. London: Routledge.
• Critchley, D. (2008). The origin of organized crime in America: The New York City mafia 1891-1931.
• Lyman, M. D., & Potter, G. W. (2006). Organized crime. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
• Larke-Walsh, G. (2010). Screening the mafia: Masculinity, ethnicity and mobsters from the godfather to the sopranos. Jeffererson: McFarland & Company Inc.
• Kilday. A., & Nash, D. (Eds.). (2010). Histories of crime: Britain 1600-2000. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Godfrey, B. (2008). History & crime. London: SAGE.
• Emsley, C. (2005). Crime and society in England 1750-1900. (3rd ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education.
• Dickie, J. (2004). Cosa Nostra: A history of the Sicilian mafia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Madsen, F. (2009). Transnational organized crime. Hoboken: Taylor & Francis.

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