Sociology/Criminology
take the mark for the late piece of assessment lower than the 40% (undergraduate) / 50% (postgraduate) pass
threshold.
Any work that is submitted more than 7 calendar days late will receive a late capped penalty mark according to
the respective pass threshold (40% undergraduate modules and 50% (postgraduate modules).
Students submitting work late that is to be considered for assessment should be afforded the opportunity to
provide written evidence, medical or otherwise, as to why their work was submitted late. This should be made on
a Mitigating Circumstances form and submitted in accordance with the operational procedure for submission
published by the appropriate School. All valid submitted mitigating circumstances forms will be considered by the
appropriate Sub-Board of examiners or its designated Mitigating Circumstances sub-board. If no such
documentation is received by the deadline for submitting such forms (normally 2 weeks after the assessment
deadline for a module) the ‘real’ mark will not be considered and the penalty mark will stand.
The absolute cut off deadline for late submission and accompanying documentation across the College is 2
weeks. Work from this point on will be treated as a non-submission.
All assessments are marked anonymously, so please do not include your name anywhere on your
assessment, just your student number.
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
Research: Does the essay demonstrate independent research beyond the required readings? Does it make
effective use of relevant, up-to-date, scholarly sources? Does the essay draw from a wide array of scholarly
sources?
Knowledge and Understanding: Does the essay demonstrate a thorough and accurate understanding of thetopic? Does the essay demonstrate capacity to evaluate sources carefully and critically? Does the essay engage with a range of course materials?
Argument & Analysis: Has the essay fully answered the question? Is the argument relevant and convincing?
Has the essay used supporting arguments, evidence and examples effectively?
Structure: Is the essay well organised, easy to follow and clearly ordered?
Citation: Does the essay consistently use proper academic referencing and citation? Are page references included for all citations and is a bibliography included at the end?
Written Style & Presentation: Is the essay clearly and legibly written? Does the essay communicate ideas effectively? Is the essay well presented, carefully proofread and edited? Is the essay within the agreed word limit?
Creativity: Does the essay demonstrate creativity, originality and imagination? Does it take intellectual risks?
Does it demonstrate critical and independent thinking?
4
Essay Questions
Respond to one of the following questions:
1. The Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 was welcomed and shunned in equal measure. Critically evaluate the
orthodox and revisionist accounts regarding the introduction of Peel’s new police and discuss the contribution
of Reiner’s ‘Neo Reithian’ explanation.
2. The Police Service is often criticised for its seeming inability to recognise the balance that needs to be struck between the use of stop and search to prevent crime and the adverse impact of its use on Black and Minority Ethnic Communities. Will the publication of the College of Policing’s new Police Race Action Plan (2022), which aims to build “an anti-racist police service”, produce the catalyst for change that the police service both seeks and needs?
3. What influence does organisational justice have on procedural justice?
4. Knowledge and understanding of the dominant occupational (police) culture has its origins in the ethnographic work of researchers from 1960s, where policing in the lower ranks was described as being infused with “an action-orientated sense of mission”, “suspicion”, “machismo”, “conservatism”, “cynicism” “sexism” “isolation”, “pragmatism” and “racial prejudice”. Do these descriptions still hold relevance today when attempting to understand policing in 2022?
5. “One important route to reform is increasing the numbers of policewomen…Our position is derived not from a feminisation thesis, i.e. the belief that more women means a different and more feminised police culture will evolve, (Dick and Nadin, 2006) but from a practice based perspective, which sees women as having a fundamental impact on the dominant, taken for granted, work practices which are the chief carriers of some of the more problematic and troublesome aspects of contemporary policing and police organisations”
Critically evaluate and discuss this statement.
Quote taken from:
Dick, P., Silvestri, M and Westmarland, L (2014) Women Police: Potential and Possibilities for Police Reform.
In Brown, J (ed) The Future of Policing, London Routledge This book is available from the library as an ebook
6. Critically evaluate the competing arguments between the government’s top-down drive for police
organisations to professionalise, and officers’ bottom-up views on policing remaining a craft based profession.
ace Action Plan Police Race Action Plan Police Race Action Plan
