Youth criminality and personal safety

University of the West of England 
Bristol

1. Assignment Brief

For this assignment we would like you to produce a report or presentation about youth crime, victimisation and prevention in your area (or an area that you are familiar with), based on existing research (“secondary” data analysis)

It is up to you how you go about this research, but there are some suggestions in the next few paragraphs.

You could find out about self-completion questionnaires, which may have been conducted in a school or youth group. These tend to be anonymous and allow for self-reporting on offending and victimisation, which would be difficult in a face-to-face or group setting.

Often, these types of questionnaires form the basis for focus groups or interviews.

Find out if any of these have been conducted, and what the results were.

Some youth projects work in more innovative ways, and produce videos or websites about issues that affect them. Have any schemes in your chosen area done something similar? You could compare this with other more conventional forms of data gathering.

How you select and negotiate your data is up to you. You could contact a local youth club or school, or your local council or youth offending team. Please ensure that, while carrying out this research, you remain within the bounds of propriety, ethics and the law, as regards young people's rights and entitlement to privacy and confidentiality. Consider why it might not be appropriate to conduct a survey face to face with young people yourself.

Many youth consultations and confidential surveys have been carried out, so try to find out more about some of these in other areas and possibly use your study to compare with or develop what has gone before. You should link your findings to existing theories and research about young people and crime and, perhaps, use them to challenge or clarify popular stereotypes about juvenile delinquency and victimisation.

Your report or presentation can be in whatever format you like. If it is entirely as a text document, it should run to approximately 9 pages (2,500 words) If you are submitting a tape, video or Powerpoint presentation etc, then it should have an amount of content equivalent to a 9 page (or 2,500 word) document.

Our assessment of your assignment will reflect not only its substantive content, but also your ability to organise and present your data in a logical, coherent, analytical, well-structured and grammatically sound manner.

2. Assessment criteria

• We will be basing our assessment of your assignment on evidence of the following:
• Achievement and integration of the learning objectives for this module. h Augmentation of the theories and principles discussed in the module. with additional material drawn from experience or further reading on the subject.
• Original thinking that elaborates or challenges the arguments and opinions conveyed in the module.
• Ability to communicate research findings, opinions and practical accounts in a clear and logical manner.

An example of the marking matrix that we use in UWE is included as template 3 in the 'Templates' folder.

3. Weighting of marks

This assignment counts towards 50% of your final mark for this module. The remaining 50% will be based on the assessment of the assignment that you complete in the second part of this module: Personal Safety

4. Sources of Guidance and information

You may wish to refer to one of the many guides available. These can be found on the UWE library website [http://www.uwe.ac.uk]. On the right of the page, select 'Study and information skills'. This section contains guidance on study skills and referencing guides.

For the content of the briefing paper, you should find most of the information you require in the module materials (text and reader), although we would encourage you to expand your learning by looking beyond the course materials.

5. University assessment regulations

The Youth Criminality and Crime Prevention module is a Level M standard module.

To pass a module, students must achieve an overall mark of not less than 50%.

This module is comprised of two components. Students must achieve at least 40% for both assignments, with an aggregate mark of not less than 50%.

To achieve a distinction, you will need to get an average of 75% or more in the assignments.

Your mark will have to be ratified by the next meeting of the course examining board. There are standard University procedures for appealing against marks, and you are entitled to receive these details if you want to appeal.

If you fail your assignment, you may re-submit your work once, having amended it in the light of feedback from the subject tutor. Under the University’s regulations however, re-submitted work can only be given a maximum mark of 50% (pass), unless you have confirmed extenuating circumstances.