Overview
Why do people commit crimes? And what should we do about it? From offender to victim, punishment to rehabilitation, this BSc (Hons) Criminology and Criminal Justice degree asks questions about the causes and consequences of crime. The answers may surprise you. They’ll certainly help you choose the right career path.
As you become an expert on criminology and the criminal justice system in England and Wales, you’ll develop skills for a range of careers – from policing and prisons, to probation and rehabilitation, as well as roles fighting fraud in the private sector or influencing Government policy. And because crime doesn’t respect borders, this course also gives you a uniquely international perspective.
Course Highlights
- Explore the latest national and international criminology debates and research in topics as varied as hate crime, state crime, terrorism, gang crime and victimology
- Get career-ready with an emphasis on skills and employability, including volunteering opportunities with organisations such as Hampshire Constabulary and local charities like Aurora New Dawn (supporting victims of crime) and Read and Grow Society (helping ex-offenders learn to read)
- Learn from an international criminology team whose experience spans law and criminal justice, policing, probation and more – including a former private detective doing important research into missing persons and an expert in European responses to domestic violence
- Join lively debates in one of the country’s largest criminology departments and contribute your own ideas on how we should respond to crime as a society
- Study alongside operational police units and learn directly from operational policing staff
- Have the opportunity to do a criminology work placement year after your second or third year on this Connected Degree - we're the only UK university to offer flexible sandwich placements for undergraduates
- Build a professional network by meeting practitioners from criminal justice agencies, businesses and charities
- Customise your degree to match your ambitions: some modules reduce the amount to time you’d need to train for a policing career or as a probation officer
- Choose to learn a foreign language for free as part of your degree, from a selection of Arabic, British Sign Language, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin or Spanish
Careers and opportunities
Crime is a fact of life, which means there will always be career opportunities around preventing it and dealing with the fallout. As our graduates’ career paths show, you’ll complete this criminology course with a range of different professional routes open to you in the public, private and charitable sectors.
There is good demand for jobs in the criminal justice and penal sector. For example, Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) has developed a Probation Workforce Strategy to recruit skilled people to probation officer roles and invest in ongoing professional development.
You'll graduate with the skills and knowledge you need to work in the police, probation and prison services in areas such as:
- community safety
- crime prevention
- fraud investigation
- youth offending teams
You'll also have relevant skills or knowledge to progress into other areas such as:
- counter fraud roles in banking, the NHS or the DWP
- economic crime investigation
- policy analysis and formulation for councils or the Government
- community rehabilitation
- postgraduate study and research
