This unit offers a critical exploration of policing and investigative practices within Australian and global contexts. You will examine the historical foundations of policing in Australia, with particular attention to colonial and postcolonial legacies that continue to shape contemporary law enforcement. The unit encourages you to engage with complex debates surrounding the role of police in diverse, democratic societies, including tensions between public safety, civil liberties, and the discretionary powers of law enforcement. Through analysis of various policing and investigative models and agencies, you will gain insight into the diverse structures, functions, and jurisdictions that underpin the modern law enforcement ecosystem. Investigative strategies will be explored through case studies and practical scenarios, enabling you to critically assess their purpose, application, and effectiveness in addressing different types of crime.
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 1 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 4 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
There are no pre-requisites for the unit.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 1 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 84.62% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 11.02% response rate.
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.