Criminology with Foundation Year BSc(Hons)

This module provides you the opportunity to apply the skills required in higher education study. This will include finding suitable sources, using the University's search engine summon, and presenting your studies in an academic format. You'll learn how to plan and undertake a project whilst developing skills in the effective engagement with academic literature. You'll also be encouraged to evaluate your own academic skills and participate in peer review and feedback processes.

This module will explore the importance of effective communication in public services, along with providing insights into the differing individual preferences and needs of patients, clients, service-users and carers. You'll also have the opportunity to develop the basic knowledge, understanding, values and skills to support communication and personalisation when working with people.

In this module you'll explore the contexts of health and social care services for physical and mental health, and wellbeing. You'll consider what shapes provision, as well as what impacts on the variations in health and wellbeing outcomes for different groups in society. You'll also learn about key issues such as social and welfare policies, austerity, and social inequalities.

This module will introduce you to key issues relating to the study of society, social structures and systems, and also people as individuals. You'll explore important and topical issues relating to the psychology of human behaviour, how our society is organised and constructed, and how people experience social life. This will include consideration of crime and criminal justice, social structures, inequalities and social difference. This module aims to help prepare you for further study in core areas such as criminal justice and policing, criminology, psychology and sociology.

In this module you’ll examine the history of human rights and consider rights-based issues, such as the death penalty, euthanasia, children’s rights and immigration. The module you will consider how these issues relate to and inform social policy and social welfare here in the United Kingdom. The module will apply human rights and social policy to social issues that affect our society including crime, poverty, migration, social class, race, gender, and disability.

This module explores the nature of crime and deviancy, the main perspectives in explaining criminal behaviour, and the structures of the criminal justice system. You’ll start by examining the definitions of crime, followed by an exploration of the criminal legal system including the key criminal offences and defences. You’ll then be introduced to the key agencies within the criminal justice system, which include the Police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Courts, and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. The second half of this module introduces the key theoretical explanations for criminality, ranging from psychological explanations to sociological explanations.

You'll explore both the myths and realities of crime. The realities of crime are examined by considering how we measure the amount and types of crime being committed in England and Wales, who by, against whom and where. The myths of crime are studied through media (mis)representations of crime, offending and victimisation, considering the factors that shape crime reporting. The effects of these representations on the public will be considered by exploring research undertaken linking media reporting of crime to fear of crime, violent behaviour or aggression.

In this module you’ll explore these questions and study qualitative and quantitative research approaches. You’ll explore philosophical underpinnings of social research, key considerations concerning research ethics and researcher reflexivity, a range of data collection methods and techniques for data analysis, and how social research can be evaluated.

You’ll have the opportunity to plan and complete a practical work based experience related to your course. This will give you the chance to apply your theoretical subject knowledge to a professional setting, helping to develop your employability skills in preparation for your future career.

This module explores the strategies of crime reduction and prevention. You’ll explore a range of different reduction responses and investigate the evidence regarding their effectiveness in different situations. You’ll also consider explanations for the different ways that society responds to crime, setting these in a social, political and theoretical context.

You’ll be introduced to critical perspectives of the methods and processes of work undertaken with offenders and victims within the criminal justice process. This will include an exploration of factors that may influence criminal offending and how these may be addressed with strategies to reduce and manage offending. You'll also explore patterns of victimisation and repeat victimisation and strategies to address the needs of victims.

You'll explore the nature, variety and extent of violent crime and its prevention (for example terrorism, homicide, work-placed bullying, and stalking). You'll demonstrate your knowledge of theoretical explanations for violent crime and violence prevention methods.

You'll research a topic of your choice in depth, giving you the opportunity to develop your own research interests. Drawing on the area you have chosen to study, you'll engage with issues of project design and research methods. You'll discuss your project proposal in a presentation and produce a dissertation about your research topic. Throughout you will be supported by one-to-one supervision.

You’ll explore modern police investigation practice in relation to serious crime, including the contribution of forensic science, offender profiling, surveillance data and new technologies. You’ll consider how current research into serious crime, such as homicide, terrorism and sexual offences, informs practice and police decision making, as well as how investigations and major enquiry management have become increasingly professionalised.

In this module you’ll consider contemporary British society in relation to issues of race, ethnicity and difference. You’ll explore the extent to which race and ethnicity continue to shape contemporary society, in relation to education, health, employment, government policies and popular culture such as films and music.

This module aims for you to gain a key understanding of how the roles of collective mobilisation and social movements have moved to centre stage in explaining continuity and change in contemporary society. Different expressions of collective identity and social movements, from revolutionary to non-violent, peace movements, to women’s movements that have challenged gender discriminations, to those movements that seek to radicalise, alongside those based in class or ethnic identities, or climate and environmental issues, all seek to influence and shape the ways in which societies and the state behave. Social movements have been and continue to present major social forces in influencing and determining human history.