Unit of Study LAWS3010 Psychiatry, Psychology and the Law (2024)

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Unit Snapshot

Unit type

UG Coursework Unit
Credit points

12
Faculty & College

Faculty of Business, Law and Arts
Placement

No

Unit description

Provides students with an overview of the way law and judicial systems affect the individual and how various theories reflect on the process of internalisation of law. Introduces students to psychological and psychoanalytic theories to enable them to assess why some people internalise social prohibitions and other do not. Students will be encouraged to think critically about how psychoanalysis, psychology and psychiatry can help legal practitioners and assess how new studies in the domain of neuroscience contribute to legal reasoning.

Unit content

How do people internalise law?
Difference between neurotic, psychotic and perverse subjective structure and their attitude towards social prohibitions
Crime and subjective attitudes towards punishment
Shame and guilt
Psychopaths – lack of remorse and lack of compassion
Psychiatry and the power of experts in the legal domain
Problems with forensics fraud
Neuroscience and law
CSI effect
Adolescents and crime
Psychiatry, crime and genetics
Psychological problems in legal profession

Availabilities

Not currently available in 2024

Learning outcomes

Unit Learning Outcomes express learning achievement in terms of what a student should know, understand and be able to do on completion of a unit. These outcomes are aligned with the graduate attributes. The unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes are also the basis of evaluating prior learning.

On completion of this unit, students should be able to:

Analyse the connection between psychology and law;

Assess the role able to be played by psychiatry and psychology in the criminal justice system;

Critically reflect on fraudulent testimonies;

Critically analyse the extent, consistency and adequacy of the legal system's appreciation of psychological knowledge in the contexts of the criminal and civil law.

Fee information

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