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Explore youth, crime and justice by placing official statistics within the wider context of how youth crime is socially constructed. We'll examine explanations of youth crime and desistance and assess both theoretical and developmental perspectives.

Investigate how society responds to youth crime and look at the role of the youth justice system, including the criminal courts and youth custody. The module also introduces you to key contemporary debates, such as the over representation of minoritised groups and the minimum age of criminal responsibility.

Through these discussions, you shall develop a critical understanding of youth crime and the policy and practice that shape youth justice today.

Explore the ways in which social identities and subjectivities can be created, maintained and expressed through the body with reference to pervasive beauty norms. You will draw upon sociological theories of feminism and normativity, including geographies of the body and the sociology of beauty, food and diet, body modification and adornment, whiteness, resistance and body work. You will also engage with corporeal mapping of class, gender ethnicity and sexuality and examine surveillance discourses and different forms of embodied resistance.

In this module, you will be introduced to criminal psychology and its role in the criminal justice system. We'll explore police psychology, expert and eyewitness testimony, forensic assessment and psychological theories that help explain offender behaviour. We'll also consider ethics and the work of correctional services.

Examine landmark legal cases to understand how psychological theory is applied in criminological and forensic settings. Through these examples, you’ll gain an understanding of offender motivations and look at how society responds to punishment and treatment.

You’ll also learn about the key processes and people within the legal system and how their work connects to psychological practice.

This module explores the relationship between crime, justice, and the media. Students will study criminological, sociological and media theory relating to factual and fictional forms of media. The module aims introduces students to theoretical and empirical analysis of media constructions of topics such as crime, criminals, victims, justice, and policing. It encourages critical thinking about the use of social divisions (for example gender, race, class) in this media, and the consequences mundane media representations have for wider understandings of society and social issues. Students will identify and apply suitable theoretical arguments for a discussion of contemporary 'crime stories,' and design and carry out a theoretically informed thematic analysis of a chosen 'crime story.'

This module explores core issues, debates, and controversies surrounding the use of intoxicants and other chemical substances. Students will examine the social construction of drug use and addiction, including psychoactive substances, food additives, and narcotic replacement therapies. The module covers social and medical approaches to addiction treatment and the role of drugs in crime and deviant activity. It aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of drug use, addiction, and related social issues. Students will engage in discussions about drug definitions, regulatory regimes, treatment approaches, and the implications for policing and drug consumption.

Focusing on the sociology and history of policing, this module examines the background, culture, and practices of policing in England and Wales, with references to other jurisdictions.

Students will explore formal and informal policing, modern policing culture, and their influence on policy and operational processes.

The module aims to introduce students to the history, sociology, politics, and practice of policing and the public police. It covers a broad range of topics related to police, policing, and the police, providing a comprehensive understanding of the factors shaping modern policing.

Gain a comprehensive understanding of prisons and imprisonment. This module examines the historical evolution of prisons, the daily lives of prisoners and contemporary debates on issues like solitary confinement and long sentences. You'll explore the broader societal context of the prison system.

Explore the concepts of rehabilitation, risk and desistance in the criminal justice system. Examine how rehabilitative approaches have changed over time and how ideas about risk shape responses to offending.

You’ll look at key research on desistance from crime and consider how desistance links to rehabilitation and risk management. The module also introduces you to the work of agencies involved in rehabilitation, such as the Probation Service, and offers insight into the experiences of people under community supervision.

By studying this module, you’ll develop a critical understanding of offender rehabilitation, the role of risk in decision making and the evidence that informs desistance research.

In this module, you’ll examine key debates about the nature of punishment and its role in society. Together, we shall explore philosophical, political and historical reasons for punishment and trace how ideas about punishment have changed since the Enlightenment.

You’ll learn about contemporary systems of punishment, the challenges they face and the alternative forms that have been proposed. The module introduces you to theories that explain why punishment evolves and how social divisions such as class, race and gender affect patterns of punishment.

You also investigate criminological accounts of differential punishment and engage with abolitionist perspectives. By the end of the module, you develop a clearer understanding of punishment as a social phenomenon and the theoretical and practical questions it raises for criminal justice today.

This module examines the impact of digital technologies on identity, belonging, intimacy, work, family and civic participation. Students will explore how social media platforms like Twitter/X, Facebook, and Instagram enable us to track our daily lives and routines, filter our realities, form intimate relations, engage in politics and protest. The module addresses both digital engagement and resistance, critically engaging with key conceptual and theoretical debates in digital sociology. Students will learn about the transformative effects of digital technologies and social media and their implications for social relations and identity.

Analyse the myths and debates that surround criminal trials, focussing on England and Wales while drawing on comparative examples to deepen your understanding. Review the legal and procedural rules that guide criminal trials and challenge common myths shaped by media portrayals.

Examine high profile cases to explore continuing problems and controversies, including miscarriages of justice. The module also introduces issues on the frontiers of court reform, such as proposals to replace jury trials, the use of virtual technologies and questions of equality in the courtroom.

By bringing together ideas from law, psychology and criminology, the module encourages you to think critically about how trials work and how they might change in the future.

Explore how criminology can help you understand and respond to the climate crisis. The module introduces you to green criminology, an area that examines environmental harm, ecological justice and the social, political and economic systems that drive environmental degradation.

You’ll investigate forms of environmental harm such as pollution, deforestation, biodiversity loss and climate change and consider how these can be understood as crime or injustice, even when they fall outside legal definitions. The module also supports you in examining how state and corporate actors contribute to ecological damage and how communities, activists and justice systems respond.

Through case studies, theoretical debates and contemporary examples, you develop a critical understanding of how criminology can challenge dominant narratives, expose environmental injustice and support more sustainable and equitable futures.

You’ll explore southern and decolonial perspectives in criminology and examine how they challenge the dominance of knowledge produced in the Global North. These approaches will help you consider how colonisation shapes ideas about crime and justice and why perspectives from the Global South matter for understanding contemporary issues.

Investigate theories that address crime and justice in the Global South and work with case studies involving problems such as genocide, human trafficking and urban violence, as well as justice practices like community policing. Through these examples, you develop a critical understanding of how colonial histories continue to influence criminological thought.

The module also supports you in applying southern and decolonial theories to crime and justice issues in both the Global South and the Global North, helping you think differently about whose voices shape criminology today.

Explore cyber crime, how it is carried out, how it is regulated, and what it means for victims. Examine the emergence of different forms of cyber crime, including fraud, identity theft, hacking, online harassment and offences linked to the dark web.

We’ll assess the theoretical and methodological challenges of studying cyber crime and consider global trends and technological developments that shape online offending. Case studies and discussions help you investigate motivations for cyber crime and analyse the difficulties involved in policing and regulating digital spaces.

You’ll be introduced to the phenomenon of human trafficking and explore different forms and patterns of trafficking internationally. Examine root causes, prevention methods and popular understandings of this transnational crime. The module encourages you to think critically about legal and criminological responses to human trafficking and modern slavery, as well as media representations and rescue based approaches.

You’ll develop a broad understanding of human trafficking and the contemporary issues surrounding victimisation and offending. You’ll also analyse criminal justice and counter trafficking frameworks and consider complex questions about agency, power and the politics of pity.

Explore restorative justice as an alternative approach to addressing crime, harm, and conflict. You’ll examine how restorative practices challenge traditional criminal justice responses by focusing on healing, accountability and dialogue between those affected by wrongdoing.

Drawing on insights from criminology, psychology, sociology and law, the module investigates why people offend, why conventional systems often fall short and how restorative approaches offer meaningful alternatives.

You’ll explore how restorative justice is applied in the criminal justice system and wider social contexts, such as schools, workplaces and communities as well as in response to serious human rights violations.

Topics include the theoretical foundations of restorative justice, different models of practice (such as mediation, sentencing circles and family group conferencing), and the risks and opportunities for those involved. You’ll also examine global developments and case studies to understand how restorative justice is being used to reform justice systems from both the inside and the outside.

Sensory criminology is an emerging, interdisciplinary field examining how human senses shape the experience of crime, justice and social control. Together, we’ll look at the history of sensory studies in the social sciences and the development of sensory criminology.

We’ll cover topics such as sensory research methods, the ethics of sensory research, and sensory victimology. Through these studies you’ll deepen your understanding of criminological issues by focusing on sensory experiences like sound, smell, and touch.

You’ll learn how sensory methods can challenge traditional criminological theories and explore the sensory components of punishment, victimisation, and justice.

You’ll explore the development of victimology and examine the key historical shifts, theoretical perspectives and research on the social construction of victims. This includes investigating the social construction of victims and the debates that influence who is recognised as a victim.

You will consider key issues and debates in victimology, assessing how victim recognition affects the different responses offered by governmental and non-governmental organisations. Throughout the module, you critically examine how victimology has advanced and what this means for criminal justice policy, interactions and practice.

In this module, you will explore how war, state violence, and atrocity are understood within criminology, sociology, philosophy and zemiology. You will examine the ideas of key theorists such as Hannah Arendt, Stanley Cohen, and Zygmunt Bauman and consider how their work helps you make sense of organised violence and its impact on societies.

You will investigate how war shapes and is shaped by race, class and gender, and you will look at the injustices experienced in the Global South. You will also study the legacies of colonial systems and how these influence both conflict and responses to harm today.

Through case studies and critical debates, you will learn how states use violence, how societies attempt reconciliation after mass suffering, and how different forms of power contribute to serious harm on a global scale.