UJUTD3-30-1 Criminal Law Task 2 Assessment Brief | UWE

UJUTD3-30-1 Module Outcomes

• MO1: Demonstrate subject knowledge and a basic understanding of the key theories, concepts and values, principles and rules of the English criminal legal system.
• MO2: Understand the importance of primary and secondary sources of law within the criminal law and source information from a guided range of primary and secondary data.
• MO4: Recognise, respect and value diversity of experience and the perspectives of others, and demonstrate an understanding of the principles and values of law, justice, and legal ethics

Formatting Requirements

Times New Roman or Arial, 1.5 spacing

The first page of your coursework must include:

• Your student number
• The module name and number
• Your word count
• That you are using Harvard referencing, if you are a joint awards student only
• The coursework question or title

Specific Resources Which Help You Complete This Assessment

There is a folder of resources provided by the Law Librarians to support you through the process of producing this submission. This can be found in the Task 2 Assessment Folder.

There will be a formative opportunity available in workshops in the week commencing 31st March 2025. This is the final week of the term before the Spring Break.

General assessment support will be provided within timetabled lecture and workshop sessions in the week commencing 28th April and 5th May 2025.

If you are registered on UJUUB9-30-1, please remember that finding and evaluating authoritative secondary sources, referencing and reading case law have also formed part of your Skills sessions in the Foundations for Law and Criminology module.

Instructions

Title: Portfolio of Written Work:

• This piece of work is an individual submission and should therefore represent one student’s work.
• Information and guidance on the submission will be made available within the Assignments section on Blackboard.

Hypothetical Situation:

The next issue of the Bristol Law School Journal for Students will be focusing on law reform within criminal law.

There are two areas of research that the editors particularly want to address, and you have been asked to write an article on one of the following:

Option 1: 

Despite reform to partial defences to murder (…), there remain questions about whether the operation of defences (…) achieves just outcomes (Law Commission, 2024).”

In light of the above, discuss the implementation and use of the partial defence of loss of control regarding gender biased homicide, and whether further reform is required to address the gender neutrality that the law is intended to uphold. 

Or

Option 2:

As regards the offence of robbery, Ashworth states that “Consideration must be given to dividing the offence, to mark out as particularly serious those robberies which involve the use or threat of significant violence.” (Andrew Ashworth, “Robbery re-assessed”, Crim. L.R. 2002, Nov, 851-872).

In light of the above statement, critically assess whether the offence of robbery needs reform.

Guidance

What am I required to do on this assessment?

The primary focus of this assessment is a journal article that addresses reform within the criminal law. Within workshops, you will also be allowed to gain feedback and support with the review of relevant literature and also in planning the article. These documents should also be included within the final submission.

Where should I start?

First, you will need to revisit and consolidate your knowledge and understanding of EITHER Unit 5 Property Offences OR Unit 6 General Defences, as these units will form the basis for the submission.

Second, you should attend the workshops in semester 2 as assessment-related guidance will be provided within these classes.

What do I need to do to pass? 

You need to achieve a mark of 40% to pass the assessment. Please refer to the marking criteria at the end of this document.

N.B. Please remember that if you are registered on UJUULF-30-1, your final module task marks will be aggregated with the 10% contribution from the Student Lawyer. Please see the Student Lawyer Blackboard site for details.

Please refer to the Assessment Q&A on the module’s Blackboard site for more guidance.  This Q&A allows you to ask questions about the assessment(s), anonymously if you wish, and receive a response from the module leader. 

You can and should subscribe to the Q&A so that you are emailed when a question is posed and an answer provided.  Please note:  The answers posted here effectively form part of the assessment brief - that is, if you do something instructed or advised against in this Q&A, you will lose marks, and, conversely, if you follow the guidance provided, you will earn marks. 

Please observe the following before posting:

• Do not ask a question that has already been asked;
• Do not ask a question that can readily be answered using the resources on Blackboard, including any module handbook.
• Please only post relevant and sensible questions, all of which are moderated before becoming public.

Please ensure your question is clear and precise, and include any contextual information necessary for the module leader to understand it.

(How) May I use generative AI? 

You do not need to use generative AI to complete this assessment.  If you do engage with generative AI, do so in the same way you handle other sources of information. Give credit where credit is due. Any use of AI must be credited. 

How it is credited remains the same as for any legal source. Cite any text borrowing, cite any paraphrasing, which means putting generative AI-produced text in inverted commas (“ “). Credit is only given for your intellectual input in the work. This means that if you use generative AI, you must engage with the AI tool’s output. Like any research tool, fact-check and cross-reference. Otherwise, the result will be something that,on its face, looks confident and robust, maybe even authoritative, but lacks, on further inspection, depth and accuracy. You can find more guidance on ‘how to’ use generative AI at UWE Bristol.

Practice good academic integrity. For law students, higher levels of transparency, honestyand originality are expected. It is important to note that you should not present AI output as your own opinion or critical analysis.

What resources will help me understand and succeed with what I’ve been asked to do?

• Finding books, articles and other information > generally, here and for legal research, here
• Plan and structure your work in> workbook here
• Writing in academic style > workbook here
• Write a report > workbook here
• Be reflective > workbook here
• Be critical/evaluative > workbook here
• Complete a literature review > workbook here
• Reference via OSCOLA, or Harvard (optional for joint award students only) – or see the BLIS course
• Write using academic English > support here

For Work Uploaded to Blackboard, you must Preview Your Work in Blackboard Before Final Submission.

You may be able to ask for an alternative form of assessment.  Please see these webpages and speak to the Module Leader if in doubt.

Whilst there are similarities between a written academic essay and an article in an academic journal, there are also notable differences. When approaching this piece of work, please keep in mind the following:

A journal article……

is aimed at an audience with a good general knowledge of the topic, but is not an expert.
…is a focussed examination of a central argument or subject.
.…addresses a topic in order to advance a particular argument.
…is structured, often using subheadings to break the content into key points.
…builds to a clear conclusion that supports a specific outcome.
…written to have an impact in the wider academic and/or practice community.

Additional guidance on the two options:

Option 1

In 2004, the Law Commission made recommendations for reform of the partial defences to murder, which included provocation   (now loss of control).1  These recommendations were partially implemented by the Coroners and Justice Act 20092, with ‘sexual infidelity to be disregarded.3 However…

In the two decades since our recommendations, several high-profile cases have highlighted ongoing concerns that the current law does not allow the context of domestic abuse to be properly considered within the criminal justice system, preventing just outcomes in these cases.

Academic commentary has also been critical of the loss of control, particularly regarding its complex, and at times, badly drafted provisions.’5 Additionally, Clough and Reed assert in their 2023 Journal of Criminal Law Editorial that despite the previous reform, ‘pleadings continue   to   be   assessed   through   masculinist   interpretations.’6  Therefore,   the   Law Commission   (..)   want to know whether further reform is needed to help ensure just outcomes in ‘loss of control’ cases. That could be reform of the current defence [or] a new bespoke defence.’

Write an article for the next issue of the *Bristol Law School Journal for Students in which you consider the current position in English criminal law through the lens of gender homicide, and whether law reform about the partial defence of loss of control is required.

The remit of the journal article should focus solely on the law surrounding ‘loss of control ’ and related literature.   There is no need to discuss any other defences. The   Law Commission Background Paper 8 contains good background information in the introduction (the remaining chapters will be largely irrelevant), and the below-cited journal articles contain good analysis to form your journal planning, and thus, are a good starting point for research. The article should discuss the legal landscape pre-2004, the reforms that were implemented and subsequently, the implementation of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009,9associated case law (through the gender biased homicide lens) and then a discussion informed by academic research, before arriving at a reform-based conclusion.

Option 2

In 2002, Andrew Ashworth argued as regards the offence of robbery10 that: 

“…the offence of robbery is objectionable because it fails to mark in a publicway the distinction between a mere push and serious violence, and becausethe label   "robbery"   is therefore too vague and too liable to stereotypicalinterpretations--some may assume that serious violence, or a weapon, wasinvolved when this was not necessarily the case. It is often said that robbery is a serious offence, but that applies only to some robberies. Some offences involve   a  small   theft   with   only   slight   violence   that  would  not warrant more than a charge of assault or battery.”

Subsequent academic commentary has also been critical of robbery on the same basis. Notably, in 2019, Betts argued that “…the scope of the offence should be narrowed by incorporating  a  minimum-force  threshold  so that  offences  involving  low  levels of  force cease to be regarded as robberies and are instead treated as thefts.”12  Consequently, there is an ongoing call for reform here. 

Write an article for the next issue of the *Bristol Law School Journal for Students in which you consider the current position in English criminal law as regards whether the offence of robbery needs reform.

The remit of the journal article should focus solely on the law surrounding robbery and related literature. There is no need to discuss any other offences. The Andrew Ashworth article 13 contains relevant information throughout, and the Betts journal article 14 contains more recent analysis on the same issue, and thus, are a good starting point for research. The article should discuss the offence of robbery,   the arguments in favour of/reform,   about case law where relevant,   before arriving at a reform-based conclusion. The discussion should be informed by academic research.

Format of Portfolio

The word limit for the ‘journal article’ part of this submission is 1,800 words. 

As per usual, this does not include footnotes or bibliography for the journal article, but does include words used for the abstract