Reflective Notes on International Security Praxis Learning Journal Template

International Security Praxis
Learning Journal Template
Student name:
Course studied:
Section 1A - reflective notes
In a few sentences, please answer all of these questions for the session selected:
1. What did you consider the most striking element of this event/session?
• This event is all about serious organised crime in UK.
• I think striking event was that when I was listening to the session. I feel that I can
easily connect with the speaker as he is putting his view point very clearly.
• I got understanding of current problems which is faced under serious organised
crime.
• Speaker has deal with human trafficking, national threat leadership yet he was so
down to earth and answering all the questions properly after carefully listening.
2. Has this event reinforced or challenged your assumptions, understanding, perceptions
and ideas?
• Yes, this event has definitely challenged my assumption. Earlier I was not having ideas of
serious and organised crime.
• By attending this event I came to know that how this crime is affecting UK people very much
as compare to another security threat (Hansen, 2018).
• It is costing UK almost £ 37 billion every year. It is also costing more deaths in UK every year
when compared with other national threats.
• Speaker of this event was very friendly and I did not get bored for single minute. I
can say that the sessions were very interesting.
3. Was anything associated with this event confusing or difficult to understand?
• I did not understand his personal challenges properly. As speaker has mentioned
about his personal challenges while working in a police department.
• I only understood is that he has to work very secretly because this is not the easy job
and if any confidential information gets leaked then it can become problem for complete
police department.
• He also mentioned certain legislation and policies but I did not got clarity on that
topic.
4. What more do I need to know about this issue to help my understanding?

• I should know more about human slavery system. As earlier the meaning of slavery
for me is to force people to work for them and made them slave.
• But after attending this session I got clarity that slavery system also includes human
trafficking along with forced labour.
• I also need to know about cyber-attacks because it is common nowadays (Low,
2017). But if I got understanding of it then it will be easy for me to save myself from such
crimes.
• I think knowledge on cybercrime will be helpful to understand this session properly
and quickly.
5. Should I refine my ideas and beliefs as a consequence of attending this event?
• After attending this event I think I should have change my opinions on crime because
earlier I was not having ideas that there is so much crime but after attending this
event I got understanding of various crime and also how dangerous they are.
• I think I must know more about synthetic drugs so that I can be aware of drugs.
• As while travelling there is probability that people can carry drugs so little knowledge
will keep me aware.
• As the cocaine market has increased in UK. So by having understanding about drugs I
can spread awareness.
6. How could I identify, locate and interpret relevant information and resources to learn
more about this issue?
• Speaker has given deep knowledge about organised crime and I think this knowledge
is enough for an individual to understand about the issue.
• I have decided while listening to session only that I will do the research on firearms
trafficking.
• As this concept is new for me and I have listen this word for the first time. So I like to
do research on it.
• I also got to know that online payment crime is increasing day by day. So next time I
will be careful while doing online payment.
7. How can I use this experience to improve my learning and thinking and working?
• I can say that it was great experience of attending this event.
• I have noticed that speaker was very confident while speaking.
• I have also noticed his body language and that will help me to work on an event if in
the future I will get opportunity to lead the event.
• I will also look for the statistics and percentage of people who got affected from
different types of crime (Buil-Gil and et.al., 2021).
• I also learn about the concept of positivity. I noticed that speaker was very calm even
while addressing serious topic.
8. How does this event relate to what I have learnt elsewhere on my modules/course?
How does it confirm/contradict modules attended so far?
• This event has given common knowledge which everyone should have in today’s
world so that can safeguard yourself from crime.
• I think when you get to know about crime groups then you get more aware.
9. How does this event relate to what I have previously read? How does it
confirm/contradict this literature?

• I think I have previously also read about various organised crime and I also have
knowledge about human trafficking earlier as well.
• So my previous knowledge has helped me to understand this topic more clearly.
• Although from this event I got detailed understanding on drugs.
10. Was this event/session useful to my studies? How?
• Yes, this event is useful for my studies because I am planning to do research on
organised crime and this has enhanced my knowledge on this subject.
• This has also boost my confidence level and I can say that this is the best event of my life.
Session 2
Section 2A - reflective notes
In a few sentences, please answer all of these questions for the session selected:
1. What did you consider the most striking element of this event/session?
 I think that the speaker has very well explained the topic and also had given detail
knowledge about money laundering.
 Earlier I was not aware that money laundering has relations with other crimes as well.
Speaker was quite confident and that I liked the most about her.
2. Has this event reinforced or challenged your assumptions, understanding, perceptions
and ideas?
 By attending this session, I get knowledge about financial commission.
 It got to know that to monitor financial crime is also the work of financial commission.
 This session has also highlighted corruption cases which takes place at public offices.
3. Was anything associated with this event confusing or difficult to understand?
 The main difficulty that arise while learning about perspective of Nigeria about transnational
organized crime was understanding different ways by which corruption increases.
 At the end speaker spoke about the total numbers of jewellery that women have and was
being accounted as bribe that leads corruption (Ebekozien, 2020).

 She stated that there are around 40-million-dollar jewellery accounted as a bribe but when I
searched the it was only 6% and there was a huge difference.
 As compared to females, in Nigeria, there are numbers of males who are in public sector
who take bribe and they take bribe in the form of cash. So, it was the little bit confusion.
4. What more do I need to know about this issue to help my understanding?
 I need to know all forms in which bribes are being given.
 It can help me out in knowing the extent of corruption in Nigeria.
 Along with this, I need to know about roles and policies developed by international corrupt
practices commission. About this commission, speaker spoke in detailed manner.
 But with research, I can know all about numbers of bribes and data related to different forms
that lead corruption.
5. Should I refine my ideas and beliefs as a consequence of attending this event?
 Before attending this event, I had a few knowledge regarding corruption as I had knowledge
as bribe is given to all governmental employees but I did not have any idea regarding share
of food and drink is the form of bribe.
 It changed by thinking and now I can say that bribe can be given in any form whether it can
be costly alcohol and others.
 Sometimes governmental officers and people work in public sector ask for favour regarding
specific service.
6. How could I identify, locate and interpret relevant information and resources to learn
more about this issue?
 Public perception regarding corruption is not well-aligned with actual experience of
corruption and it is known by viewing actual statistical or data related to this/
 By researching more about actual information and public perception is the only way to know
more about this issue.
 I can then know that how many people are actually in the favour of corruption and how
many people are bind to give bribe (Page, 2018). As from the research, it is known that

numbers of people support for anti-corruption policies and it can help us out in bringing
positive changes.
7. How can I use this experience to improve my learning and thinking and working?
 In regard to this session, I can say that speaker had vast knowledge regarding perception of
Nigeria about corruption and different forms in which bribe is given.
 This session increased my knowledge to the great extent as I knew about some ways by
which we can check the actual report regarding corruption with perception of people.
 By conducting online survey also, I can know more about this problem and this topic. I can
participate in more sessions like this that can also help me out in knowing about perception
of Nigeria about bribe and corruption.
8. How does this event relate to what I have learnt elsewhere on my modules/course?
How does it confirm/contradict modules attended so far?
 I have attended course that was related to anti-corruption and crimes and there I have learnt
that bribe is one of the main crime. So, I can relate this event or session with my course.
 That course helped me out in understanding about corruption and bribe.
 This increased my knowledge related to this topic and I believe that I can give answers
related to this topic.
 I can also write about this one in the list of numbers of crime and can gain more knowledge
with detailed research and development.
9. How does this event relate to what I have previously read? How does it
confirm/contradict this literature?
 Previously I have learnt about numbers of crimes as which types of crimes are increasing,
why they are increasing and policies in the UK.
 When I attended that activity that time I knew that corruption is one of the crimes that is
everywhere and affecting people to the great extent.
 Now in this session I came to know that due to corruption the gap between the rich and
people is increasing because it is increasing resources allocation gap.

 People in urban and developed countries as well as people with high income can give bribe
in order to get their work done but the poor cannot give bribe so, they have to suffer the
most (Okon, 2018).
 I also came to know with this session that education is one of the sector where bribe is
being given in order to get children admission done but poor children left behind.
 After having capabilities, they face problems and it is the resource allocation gap that is one
of the main crimes for which I have learnt in previous literature.
10. Was this event/session useful to my studies? How?
 This session was very helpful to me and it cleared many doubts related to my course and
study.
 I can clearly say that I can use this knowledge in my next session that would be interrelated.
This session would help me out in understanding needs of security, areas where commission
required providing security and others.
Session 3
Section 3A - reflective notes
In a few sentences, please answer all of these questions for the session selected:
1. What did you consider the most striking element of this event/session?
• One of the most striking point from the session for me was the knowledge about the
department of political affairs and the working of African Union.
• This session started by addressing the issues faced by the people living in Africa.
• These issues are in large extent and wide range which a common man never thought of.