Criminology BA Honours

Criminal justice policies and practices are shaped by competing political and social values surrounding notions of justice and human rights. This module explores and debates the efficacy of some of the most contentious issues in criminal justice, including police stop and search, victims’ rights, child imprisonment, prisoner resettlement, human trafficking and the global ‘war on terror’.

This module provides a broad introduction to criminology as an inter-disciplinary and critical subject area. The three key questions addressed will be: What is criminology? What is crime? And finally, what is knowledge? By the end of the module you'll be able to contrast traditional definitions of criminology, crime and knowledge with contemporary and critical approaches to defining these terms. The module will also provide level 4 students with a chance to develop study skills.

The module will focus on developing your understanding of key theoretical perspectives within criminology, including classicism, positivism and critical perspectives. You'll investigate how these perspectives have historically developed and continue to shape contemporary criminological thought and policy. By the end of the module, you'll be able to describe, identify and evaluate different theoretical perspectives from within criminology.

This module offers a critical examination of major institutions of justice; roles played by Parliament in producing criminal law, to the roles played by the police, prosecution, probation and prison service in law enforcement and punishment; roles of courts in adjudicating, sentencing and rectifying miscarriages of justice. Particular attention is paid to the consequences of British membership of the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights.

This module offers an introduction to criminological research methods and criminological imaginations in researching crime and justice. It provides core knowledge and skills to understand different research methods and develops a decolonising perspective on criminological research. You'll apply different methods to address current issues. The knowledge and skills developed through this module will provide an invaluable foundation for the level 5 methods module and the level 6 dissertation. The module also makes connections between research skills and employability, encouraging you to start preparing for graduate employment.

How much do you actually know about London's criminal underworld? This module considers the complex, diverse and widespread nature of crime as an unremarkable everyday feature of modern urban life. The module focuses on London, in particular the East End of London, from the earliest times and goes on to explore the changing nature of London's criminal 'underworld' from modernity to late modernity. Notorious criminal families such as the Krays as well as other colourful underworld characters will be explored. Finally, the emergence of specialised law enforcement agencies to deal with this newly discovered threat will also be considered.

Society’s fascination with the ‘criminal mind’ is apparent in popular television programs depicting fictionalised criminal psychologists ‘at work’. This module explores psychology’s contribution to understanding the nature and management of crime and provides a basic introduction to the ‘psychology of crime’, introducing key concepts/theories that have developed psychological understanding of crime.

International trends in crime and justice, and relationship to globalisation and its implications for the discipline of criminology; case studies of national and transnational crime and justice, including urban crime and policing in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the ‘cocaine trail’ from Latin to North America, to the perils faced by African migrants being smuggled across borders into ‘fortress Europe’.

This module explores contemporary debates in radical criminological theory from the 1960s to date. By considering radical perspectives (including labelling, feminist, abolitionist and late modern theories) you will critically analyse contemporary criminological theories and apply theoretical argument to current issues concerning crime and its control.

In this module, students will develop their understanding of a range of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. We pay particular attention to practical and ethical issues involved in designing and conducting research, and how to choose the most appropriate methodological approach to answer different types of research questions. The module adopts a critical approach to research methodology, focusing on how sociological and criminological research can help us understand and challenge power and inequality, and how we can develop collaborative and respectful relationships with research participants.

This module provides work-based learning (WBL), requiring you to prepare for employment through evaluating skills, producing a CV and LinkedIn profile, undertaking WBL activities and reflecting on the skills gained with reference to the wider structure of the labour market and graduate employment.

Concerned with psychological aspects of the criminal justice process; aligned with investigative and criminological psychology: applying psychological theory to criminal investigation and understanding psychological problems associated with criminal behaviour; exploration and critical engagement with range of topics in forensic criminal psychology and approaches to criminal/offender profiling.

This module is designed to encourage you to critically reflect on the contribution of feminist theories to criminology; to understand the significance of gender in understanding crime, victimisation and criminal justice; and to analyse the role of the law, criminal justice and discourses about crime in the reproduction of gender relationships. It considers current social policy in this area and considers issues of gender in an international context.

This module provides a critical examination of how race and racism shape criminal justice practices, policies and procedures; possible explanations from perspectives of theories of race and racism; criminological theory; sociological concepts; historical analyses; socio-legal accounts of criminal justice process; social policy work. External guest speakers help to inform students about current developments in areas of race, racism, criminal justice and anti-racist resistance. Assessments will develop key employability skills, in relation to written and verbal communication, presentation of information, managing workloads and planning and organising.

The module will consider the history of youth crime and justice with a key focus on the history of childhood and key debates concerning the age of criminal responsibility. Perceptions of young people and the ‘crime problem’ in late modern societies will be reflected on, where understandings of ‘youth’ as a social problem, the relationship between social exclusion and young people’s offending and experiences of victimisation will be examined. Additionally, the module will consider the structures and technologies of the youth justice system and the ways in which race, class and gender operate alongside understandings of youth crime and state responses to it, exposing inequalities persistent in this area.

This module gives you the opportunity to undertake guided independent research into a criminological topic of your own choice. You'll take a high degree of responsibility for your own learning with the support of workshops and individual supervision meetings.

During the past 30 years our understanding of the police and policing has undergone major transformations. Critical policing introduces students to the critical issues confronting policing today. This course offers an insight into contemporary policing in England and Wales together with an appreciation of policing in other jurisdictions, including America and Northern Ireland. Underlying such discussions is a critical focus on protection through a critical appreciation of the police function and role.

This module introduces you to the theory, practice and scope of civil liberties and human rights in a global context. It enables you to examine human rights through different disciplinary lenses; as a system of law, as a social and political practice and as a claim made by spokespersons of certain groups. In adopting a transdisciplinary approach, the first part of the module problematises the linear narrative of continuous human rights progress and global redemption through human rights. The module instead sees human rights as unstable signifiers that are always translated, reconfigured and adopted in concrete ways in specific contexts. The second half of the module then looks at the relationship between human rights practices, reconfigurations and translations in different empirical contexts; global health, counter-terrorism, migration, surveillance and artificial intelligence.

Migrants are often portrayed in the media and in political discourse as criminals, queue-jumpers or even 'invaders'. However, these claims ignore issues of discrimination within the criminal justice system – and, more widely, the criminalising and marginalising impact of state policy on migrant individuals and communities. This module will equip you with the tools to critically analyse migrants' relationship with the immigration and criminal justice systems. It will also introduce you to the criminological study of borders and border control (border criminology) focusing on the criminalisation of migration ('crimmigration' studies) as well as the broader system of migration control, including detention and deportation. The module ends with a discussion of the impact of anti-terrorism powers on migrant communities.

In this module, you'll explore state and state-corporate crimes. Informed by critical criminological perspectives, the module interrogates issues such as the definition, causes, culpability and adequacy of responses to state and state-corporate crime. It explores these issues vis-a-vis a series of contemporary and global case studies.

The relationship between the media and crime is a topic of lively debate and research. This module provides a critical exploration of the field and offers students the opportunity to study media representations of crime, criminality and criminal justice across a range of media forms – from newspaper crime reports and television news to reality crime television, film, television drama, literature and video games and websites.

In this module, you'll consider ways in which psychological theories have developed understandings of criminal behaviour and explore the influential role of these theories in informing criminal justice policy, crime reduction/prevention initiatives and strategies. You'll evaluate psychology’s contribution to the study of crime, and consider the arguably contentious role that it plays in this field.

In this module, you'll examine increasing levels of punishment in contemporary global society, including the growing harshness of prison regimes and community-based punishments. You'll examine and critique the nature of penal punishment. The module considers current trends and forms of punishment in detail, focusing on the UK and elsewhere, with particular attention to the worldwide importance on the use of imprisonment.