Undergraduate Module Descriptor

SOC3132: Surveillance, Security and the State

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover all or some of the following topics:

  • Legislative and regulatory framework of intelligence-led policing
  • Political repression, surveillance and spying
  • Policing protest movements, social movement organisations and industrial disputes
  • Impacts of new technologies such as facial recognition and movement prediction software in CCTV on public spaces and civil society 
  • Impact of profiling technologies for minority communities.
  • Policing social media and digital rights

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching ActivitiesGuided independent studyPlacement / study abroad
221280

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

CategoryHours of study timeDescription
Scheduled learning and teaching activity2211 x 2 hour seminars
Guided Independent Study22Preparation and reading for seminars
Guided Independent Study42Preparation and reading for presentation
Guided Independent Study10Additional reading/research
Guided Independent Study54Preparation for essay

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Green, P. J., & Ward, T. (2000). State crime, human rights, and the limits of criminology. Social Justice27(1 (79), 101-115.

Lubbers, E. (2012). Secret Manoeuvres in the Dark. London: Pluto Press.

Lubbers, E. (2015). Undercover Research: Corporate and police spying on activists. An introduction to activist intelligence as a new field of surveillance. Surveillance & Society13(3/4), 338-353.

Marx, G. T. (1988). Undercover: police surveillance in America. Univ of California Press.

Marx, G. T. (2016). Windows into the soul: Surveillance and society in an age of high technology. University of Chicago Press.

Powell, A., Stratton, G., & Cameron, R. (2018). Digital criminology: Crime and justice in digital society. Routledge.

Smith, G. J., Bennett Moses, L., & Chan, J. (2017). The challenges of doing criminology in the big data era: Towards a digital and data-driven approach. The British journal of criminology57(2), 259-274.

Woodman, C. (2018). Spycops in context: A brief history of political policing in Britain. Centre for Crime and Justice Studies.