Unit Synopsis
Criminal Law in Practice is delivered via intensive mode. The unit will build on your existing knowledge of criminal law with an emphasis on developing practical oral and written communication skills designed to assist you in the practice of criminal law. You will complete advocacy based assessment tasks that will require you to present legal argument, orally, via the use of zoom. You will analyse fundamental aspects of criminal law and apply the law using a practical methodology. In this unit you will study practical topics relating to specific criminal law issues including police powers and responsibilities in arrest and questioning, applying for bail, the registry committal and committal hearing process, procedures to ensure a fair trial, the role of the jury and verdict, sentencing of youth offenders and adult offenders and the appeals process to the District Court of Queensland, the Queensland Court of Appeal and the High Court of Australia. The unit has a maximum number of students who can enrol due to the advocacy based assessment tasks.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 3 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 4 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Pre-requisites: 48 credit points of law units including LAWS11060 and Co-requisite LAWS13010
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 |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Term 1 - 2026 Profile
Attendance Requirements
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).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
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.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Practical Assessment | 40% |
| 2. Written Assessment | 60% |
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%).
Past Exams
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 75.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 10.81% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
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.
Source: Teacher reflection
Student enrolments in 2023 and 2024 and student feedback indicate that the unit is popular and seen as beneficial for students' future legal careers
Consider running the unit every year rather than once every two years
The unit has run annually since 2023 and will run again in 2026.
Source: SUTE results
Further feedback on assessments
Review when and how feedback is delivered as well as the extent of the feedback.
This was completed. Further feedback was provided as part of the the practical assessments.
Source: Reflection of UC
Include guest lectures from practitioners or judges
Include a guest lecture designed to provide insight into a day in the life of a criminal law practitioner.
This was not possible for this iteration as the intensive nature of the unit did not align with availability of potential guest lecturers. This will be a priority for the next offering of the unit.
Source: Student feedback
Students enjoyed the practical assessment but queried the value of the take home paper assessment
Review the assessments in the unit.
In Progress
Source: Student feedback
The intensive nature of the unit was difficult to adjust to when studying other units and the gap between the content and final take home paper was too long
Review the delivery of the unit and timing of assessments.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Research and apply principles of criminal law from legislation, rules and case law to the analysis of practical criminal law scenarios
- Demonstrate persuasive written and oral communication skills in response to practical criminal law scenarios
- Apply critical legal thinking, analytical reasoning and professional judgment that demonstrate an in-depth understanding of criminal law issues.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Practical Assessment | • | • | • |
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • | • |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | • |
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | • |
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • | • |
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | ||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |