ATS1423 Criminal Justice in Practice
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · S2 2026ATS1423 Overview
- Monash University
- Semester 2, 2026
- Level 1 unit
- Weekly tutorials, on campus or online
- Four coursework tasks
Criminal Justice in Practice is a first-year Monash University unit about how the criminal justice system works in practice rather than on paper.
- Assessed by Two quizzes and two written essays
- Core question Why the state punishes, and what punishment achieves
- Biggest task A policy essay proposing a change to the system
- Watch for Peer-reviewed sources only and strict word limits
How ATS1423 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Assessment 1: Quiz | 15% | Online quiz of 30 multiple-choice questions on Weeks 1 to 3, each worth 0.5% of the final grade; open book; closed Friday 14 August 2026 |
| Assessment 2: Quiz | 15% | Online quiz of 30 multiple-choice questions on Weeks 4 to 6; open book; closed Monday 14 September 2026 |
| Assessment 3: Dissecting Justice | 30% | Written analysis of 1,200 words that defines justice and tests it against police, courts, prisons, community corrections and one population, with at least eight academic sources; due Friday 9 October 2026 in the assessment summary |
| Assessment 4: Policy Research Essay | 40% | Research essay of 2,000 words on one of four prompts, proposing a change to the Australian criminal justice system and using at least twelve peer-reviewed articles; due Friday 6 November 2026 |
What ATS1423 covers
Follow the semester as one system: the laws that define crime, the police who start a case, the courts, prisons and community orders that finish it, then the alternatives and the politics of reform.
Law, Politics and the Meaning of Crime
Week 1. The social contract and controlled vengeance, Beccaria and Bentham, Merton's adaptations to strain, competing definitions of crime, Hagan's pyramid of harm, and criminal justice as a system that processes cases.02Policing and Discretion
Week 2. Davis's definition of discretion, the myth of full enforcement, why discretion is necessary, police independence, the attrition funnel, and how discretion shapes Indigenous over-representation.03Courts, Trials and Sentencing
Week 3. Due process without a Bill of Rights, the Victorian court hierarchy and precedent, plea negotiation, Packer's crime control and due process models, sentencing aims and principles, and mandatory sentencing.04Prisons and the Experience of Punishment
Week 4. Imprisonment rates and how to compare them, prison as punishment rather than for punishment, prisonisation, deprivation and importation, the pains of imprisonment, costs and families.05Community Corrections and Reintegration
Week 5. Diversion, suspended sentences, probation and parole, intermediate sanctions, desistance, risk-need-responsivity and the Good Lives Model, throughcare, and net widening.06Community, Disadvantage and Crime
Week 6. Social disorganisation, collective efficacy and social capital, poverty and cumulative disadvantage, housing and recovery, and the financial obligations that follow people out of prison.07Multi-Choice Policing Beyond the State
Week 7. Security and the myth of a state monopoly, authorisers and providers, institutional shopping, Sierra Leone and Northern Ireland, and Aboriginal night patrols.08Problem-Solving Courts and Restorative Justice
Week 8. Therapeutic jurisprudence, drug, mental health and family violence courts, Indigenous sentencing courts and Rangatahi Courts, and the evidence on restorative justice.09Nordic Exceptionalism and Humane Prisons
Week 9. Nordic imprisonment rates and prison conditions, normalisation and dynamic security, open prisons, and the critiques of exceptionalism.10Justice Reinvestment
Week 10. The original idea of reinvestment and its three steps, justice-focused and community-focused versions, bluewashing, and Australian sites such as Bourke.11Forces of System Change and Reform
Weeks 11 and 12. Influences on criminal justice policy, popular punitivism and parole populism, the iron law of prison populations, and reform versus transformation.Its synopsis covers how courts, sentencing, prisons, community supervision, parole and release operate and how people experience them, and it keeps returning to a deeper question: what gives the state its authority to punish, and what does punishment achieve?
The first six weeks follow the system as a sequence, from the laws and politics that define crime, through the police who initiate a case and the courts that decide it, to the prisons and community orders that produce its outcomes and the communities that both feed and receive them.
The second half steps outside the conventional model.
It studies policing that is not done by the state, problem-solving courts and restorative justice, the Nordic approach to prisons, justice reinvestment, and the political forces that push systems toward or away from reform.
Its four learning outcomes cover the courts, corrections, the kinds of punishment used in Victoria and elsewhere in Australia, and the debates about what punishment is for.
Assessment is entirely coursework.
Two open-book multiple-choice quizzes cover Weeks 1 to 3 and Weeks 4 to 6, and two written tasks carry most of the grade: Dissecting Justice, a 1,200-word analysis that defines justice and tests whether the Australian system produces it, and the Policy Research Essay, a 2,000-word argument on one of four prompts that must propose a change to the system and support it with at least twelve peer-reviewed articles.
Worked example · free
Build the definition section of Dissecting Justice
- 2State the definition in one sentence with named components, for example justice as a proportionate response to harm that repairs the victim and treats the person responsible as capable of change.
- 1Say who the concept applies to. The task lists society, the community, the offender and the victim, so name which of them your definition serves and whether it serves them equally.
- 2Support the definition. The rubric accepts a definition that is logically constructed, built from references, or both, so anchor each component in a source such as von Hirsch on proportionality or the restorative justice literature on repair.
- 1End with the test you will apply in the next section: if justice requires proportion and repair, each arm of the system can be checked for both.
Key terms
- Discretion
- The freedom an official has to choose among possible courses of action or inaction within the limits of their power. Police discretion shapes which people come into the criminal justice system and how.
- Due process
- The application of legal rules so that the state respects the rights of every accused person, including notice of charges, open court, proof beyond reasonable doubt, impartial judges and avenues of appeal.
- Prisonisation
- The process by which a person in prison adopts the norms of an inmate subculture built on conflict between guards and prisoners, including silence and distrust of staff.
- Parole
- Conditional, supervised release into the community after part of a prison term has been served. A breach can return the person to prison for the rest of the sentence.
- Collective efficacy
- The combination of social cohesion and residents' willingness to intervene for the common good, which allows a community to enforce its own norms.
- Therapeutic jurisprudence
- A legal philosophy that studies how laws and court processes affect people's health and wellbeing, and how judges can reduce the harm those processes cause.
- Restorative justice
- A theory of justice that treats crime as harm to people and relationships, so that justice requires repairing the harm with those most affected taking part.
- Justice reinvestment
- A policy approach that diverts money from imprisonment into the communities that send the most people to prison, to address the causes of offending there.
- Popular punitivism
- The cycle in which media coverage raises fear of crime, the public demands action, and politicians respond with harsher laws designed more to calm fear than to reduce crime.
ATS1423 FAQ
How is this criminal justice unit assessed?
Entirely through coursework. The grade comes from two open-book online quizzes worth 15 per cent each, a 1,200-word analytical task called Dissecting Justice worth 30 per cent, and a 2,000-word Policy Research Essay worth 40 per cent.
What does Criminal Justice in Practice cover week by week?
Weeks 1 to 6 follow the system: law and politics, policing, courts, prisons, community corrections and the community. Weeks 7 to 12 study alternatives and change: multi-choice policing, problem-solving courts, Nordic prisons, justice reinvestment, and the politics of reform.
How many sources does the Policy Research Essay need?
At least twelve peer-reviewed articles. Grey literature from government and other organisations does not count toward that minimum, and the brief says lecture material and tutorial discussions should not be used as sources at all.
Can I use generative AI on the written tasks?
The assessment pages allow AI for planning, structuring, editing and staying on track, but not for pasting generated text, generating references or citations, or summarising articles you have not read. Dissecting Justice also requires an AI acknowledgement.
How is Dissecting Justice marked?
Its rubric has eleven criteria: eight worth ten marks each for the definition, its support, its application to the system, argument quality, the chosen population, the conclusion and the overall argument, plus referencing and an AI acknowledgement at five each and a ten-mark reference check.
Which populations can I choose for Dissecting Justice?
The task lists five: ability, ethnic minorities, First Nations, gender and sexuality, or youth. A hint suggests comparing your group with another to show whether the system produces justice for it.
What happens if I submit an assessment late?
The written tasks lose 5 per cent for each day or part of a day late, and work submitted seven days or more late is not accepted and receives zero. The research essay also loses 5 per cent if it is left in draft mode.
How to prepare for the assessments
Treat the unit as one system you can trace from start to finish, then as a set of alternatives you can argue about. For each arm of the system, keep a one-page note with three things: the key concept from the lecture (discretion, due process, prisonisation, desistance), one figure from the readings with its year, and one way the arm can fail a particular population. Those notes become the body of Dissecting Justice.
For the research essay, choose your prompt early and read its matching chapter first, then collect peer-reviewed articles for both sides, because every prompt asks you to answer the opposing argument. Draft the proposed change last, and test it against the iron law and the political impediments in Chapter 11 before you submit.
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