Wednesday 5th November 2008

In add+vantage today, we quickly recapped some bits from last week. Kinda handy really! We looked at why good communication is important in effective leadership. The rest of the lecture we looked at the differences in structure and culture in an organisation. We came up with structure being the makings of an organisation and hierarchy. We also decided it was in layers. The culture is more like a way of life. It’s the way things work. For next week I need to do a little of research on Richard Branson.

Tuesday 4th November 2008

Today we had our 2 legal systems lectures and the study skills. Maz is still away for some reason so we had Tim Vollans again. In the lectures we quickly looked at an act of parliament and how it is laid out. We also looked at case law. Cases have been written and reported since 1275. To date, there have been 3 stages of case reporting.
1275 – 1535: year books
1535 – 1865: private reports
1865 – present: modern reports
We looked at the limits of when you can sue. This was brought up recently when someone wanted to sue, but didn’t because the person they were suing had no money. They have since won the lottery and wanted to sue now.
In study skills we looked at what difference punctuation can make. We had a letter from Jill to Jack. The first one we looked at was saying how much she loves him and cant be without him. Then we looked at a different copy with the full stops and commas in different places which says how much she hates him and really can’t stand him.

Monday 3rd November 2008

We had introducing criminology at 12 and a law seminar with Mark at 1. In introducing criminology, we looked at the differences between normal, different, deviant, and criminal. We were asked to think of an example, and try and put the example into each section. The example a few people thought of was
Normal: going to the pub
Different: getting really drunk and flirting with everyone
Deviant: dancing on the bar
Criminal: getting really drunk and assaulting someone
There was some debate as whether getting drunk is that different. This was generally the example people used. We also had a list of actions that we had to decide id they were firstly against the lay, then if they were normal, different, deviant or criminal. Most of the illegal ones were criminal obviously, but we were surprised by the fact that prostitution is not against the law, but soliciting is!
In the seminar for Constitutional and admin law, we looked at the separation of powers in a lot of detail. We looked at how different it will be this time next year when the Supreme Court is opened and the House of Lords is closed as a court. We also looked at how the separation of powers can never be perfect because the separation of powers were introduced after the government was formed.

Friday 31st October 2008

We had our 2 Constitutional law lectures today. The lectures were about the rule of law. There were some things in the lecture that were repeated a lot like the fact that judges must only interpret the law and not legislate. Another point that was repeated is that we are all under law. This applies to the police as well. For example they can not arrest you without the necessary powers. The lectures were quite interesting. We have our 3 hour exam in a few weeks which is being mentioned already. I need to start going through all of my notes and start reading a lot more.
NEED TO GET MARK RYANS BOOK

Thursday 30th October 2008

Today I had to be in at 9 for 102CRM Controlling Crime with Graham. We were looking at theories of under-control. A theory of under-control is “A group of theories that attempt to explain why some people break the rules of social conduct that others must accept and conform to”. We looked at 3 different theories.
• Social disorganisation theory – social and urban change sweep away the processes that normally regulate offending behaviour
• Neutralisation theory – most people learn the norms and values of society but also learn to rationalise (neutralise) their violation
• Control theory – some people feel less constrained by the norms and values of society and so feel more free to deviate from them
(Copied from the slides)

We also looked at some of Durkheim’s work on integration and regulation.
Summary of the lecture:
• Under-control is based on the assumption that everyone is in agreement on right and wrong
• Assumes unanimity of norms and values in society
• Some aspects of under-control have value in explaining some crime and criminality


After the lecture, we had a few hour break before we had Tim Turner for our first proper workshop on out self study module. I have decided to try and see if people with schizophrenia are more likely to commit crime. Tim said that this was too wider topic and it would be better to concentrate on a specific crime so I have decided to look at the link between schizophrenia and violent crime especially homicide. It was good to finally get to talk to Tim about the unit and we have to have a 200 word abstract of our final assessment done for our next workshop which is on 27th November (mummy’s birthday)!!!!!

We had a seminar straight after Tim’s workshop for the lecture this morning. It’s getting silly now. I think people are turning up to different seminars than they first signed up for and the group is getting bigger every week. ½ the class had to sit on the floor!
The first half of the seminar was good because we looked at an example of a reflective log and what makes it good, and what makes it bad. The log is quite different to mine. It had references to support his/her argument. I did think that some of it was incredibly opinionated which is not so much a bad thing in a reflective log but they were so one sided and would not even consider the other side of the argument which is a bit silly considering how serious the topic was (the death penalty.)
The second half of the seminar was meant to be for looking through our own logs and deciding what sort of grade they would get but we could not do this because ½ of the class did not bring theres or had not done it. This was really annoying for those of us who had done the work because I wanted to know what I need to do differently so I can get a good mark on it. I will email Graham and see if he will go through it for me.

Wednesday 29th October 2008

Today i was meant to go in for add+vantage at 9 but really didnt feel up to it. They made me drink last night lol.

Tuesday 28th October 2008

Today we had 2 lectures for Constitutional & Admin Law and a seminar for Study Skills. For the 2 lectures, Maz was away so we had Tim Vollans instead. The lecture was about how law is passed though parliament, normally with the white paper, green paper, and through the House of Commons and the House of Lords. We talked about exceptions and how sometimes the house of lords will delay a bill. There are also some acts that have been put though with only the House of Commons. We looked at a case where it was argued that the Hunting Act 2004 is illegal because of the parliament act 1949 that was used to push through the legislation is in itself illegal because of the way it was passed.
In the seminar, we looked at how we should be writing essays for our first year. We looked at how paragraphs should be written and in what order. We also looked at what we should do when we are going to write an essay. How we should plan it, and then what to do when we have finished.
We were told at the beginning of the seminar that it was going to be boring but I thought that some of the information was quite interesting and will be helpful when I come to write my essays.