LAW4552 · Gender and the criminal justice system

Overview

This unit critically examines how gender, as a social and legal construct, shapes the operation, outcomes, and institutional design of the criminal justice system. It explores the ways in which legal doctrines, policy responses, and criminal justice practices intersect with gendered power dynamics, affecting not only how violence is perpetrated and addressed, but also how individuals are criminalised, sentenced, and treated by the legal system. Comparative, intersectional, and trauma-informed perspectives will underpin analysis throughout, enabling students to conceptualise and evaluate legal and policy reform aimed at addressing systemic inequality and promoting substantive justice. Drawing on doctrinal analysis, socio-legal scholarship, and feminist legal theory, the unit equips you to interrogate both the gendered nature of criminal offending and victimisation, and the broader ways in which gender norms influence legal reasoning, evidentiary standards, institutional responses, and access to justice. You will engage critically with questions of how masculinity, femininity, and non-binary gender identities are constructed, regulated, and disciplined through criminal law. Core topics include: the structural drivers of gender-based violence, coercive control, sexual offences and the role of consent, intimate image abuse, homicide in the context of intimate partner violence, infanticide, and the sentencing of offenders with parenting or caregiving responsibilities.

Offerings

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

The Handbook lists no prerequisite, corequisite or prohibition for this unit.

Learning outcomes

1. Demonstrate advanced knowledge of how gender shapes the perpetration of criminal conduct and the legal and institutional responses within the criminal justice system;
2. Critically analyse and compare the treatment of gender-based violence and gendered offending in Australian criminal law and selected comparative jurisdictions, including relevant statutes, case law, and policy frameworks;
3. Apply and integrate feminist, intersectional, and socio-legal theories to evaluate and critique the development, interpretation, and implementation of criminal law;
4. Assess the effectiveness and limitations of criminal justice interventions in responding to complex gendered harms, including coercive control, sexual violence, and intimate partner homicide;
5. Develop and communicate evidence-based legal reform proposals that address structural gender inequality, drawing on doctrinal analysis, empirical research, and normative frameworks;
6. Demonstrate advanced legal research, writing, and oral communication skills through independent and collaborative tasks involving case analysis, law reform, and policy critique.

Workload

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. The unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.