Cybercrime and Digital Investigation MSc

Course content

What will you study on the MSc Cybercrime and Digital Investigation? Structure

Four core plus one optional module are completed over terms one and two, with a Dissertation period in term three.

Modules

Each module is typically worth 20-30 credits except the Dissertation and Work Integrated Learning, which are worth 60 credits. Work Integrated Learning may be chosen to replace the Dissertation with prior agreement.

The module aims to give you a broad understanding of regulatory compliance and the detection, investigation and prevention of financial crime (e.g. fraud, electronic crime, money laundering) in corporate environments. You will gain an understanding of the nature and purposes of regulation in the area of financial services, and how compliance is managed in practice. You will also gain knowledge and skills related to the use of digital forensic tools and techniques to manage compliance, mitigate risks and investigate financial crime. The module will focus on the UK regulatory framework as well as international models, conventions and standards.

With increasing amounts of social activity taking place on the Internet cybercrime is becoming an important area of study. By exploring the history, nature and patterns of cybercrime this module will introduce you to the sociological and criminological study of crime on the Internet. Through a series of examples and case studies of Internet related crime you will consider the diversity of cybercrime as well as its prevention and detection. What is cybercrime? What criminological theories can we use to explain cybercrime? What harm does cybercrime cause? How do people become victims of cybercrime? How is cybercrime policed? How can cybercrime prevented? These are some of the questions that will be tackled in class.

This module is designed to provide a critical analysis of selected issues in the study of cybercrime and its control. This aim translates into the following objectives:

• To provide you with a critical introduction to the concept of cybercrime;
• To examine the impact of cybercrime on contemporary society;
• To help you develop an understanding of the relationship between developments in information technology and social harm;
• To understand how the study of cybercrime challenges existing criminological theories and criminal law;
• To develop your critical and written communication skills in relation to cybercrime issues;
• To develop independent research and learning

The module aims to give you a sound understanding of the relationship between digital investigations and digital technologies, as well as an in-depth knowledge of evidence management and the consequences of mismanagement. This practical module will give you all the skills you need to remove electronic digital media from your sources using industry tools and conduct forensic investigations (using commercial software) on case studies. You’ll learn about the planning of investigations, technology management strategies and how your actions could affect evidential continuity. You will finish this module equipped with the awareness that digital forensics is as much about documentation, processes and validity as it is about technical investigations.

With increasing amounts of social activity taking place on the Internet cybercrime is becoming an important area of research, policy and practice. This module aims to provide you with a critical introduction to legal issues and contemporary methods used in researching cybercrime and to current research through a series of case study guest lectures, each of which will focus upon research design, methods of data collection, data analysis and ethics. The module also aims to develop your critical awareness of research and to enable you to apply complex skills learnt in practical assessments and workshops focusing upon the research process from design to implementation.

Students complete a Dissertation on a cybercrime topic of their own choice.

The module aims to enable you to apply theoretical knowledge and research to anticipate and respond to challenges in a selected workplace experience. You can undertake this workplace experience as an internship that you negotiate yourself or in your current workplace or an existing voluntary role. It also aims to help you foster sustainable long term learning by requiring that you take responsibility for your own learning, design and negotiate learning goals and make informed judgments about your performance across the programme of study. The module will ask you to engage as active subjects in the assessment process, thus enhancing your capacity for transformative learning. By selecting a topic of interest grounded in your workplace experience you’ll be expected to demonstrate reflexivity, self-regulation and self-assessment in your journey towards personal and professional development.

In this module you’ll critically examine contemporary social problems that are often said to threaten the fabric of society, are subject to intense media exposure and scrutiny, involve the deployment of significant resources via schools, the police, the courts, charities, independent commissions etc. and which have also attracted considerable attention from criminologists in recent years. These problems include street crime, night-time disorder, riots and riotous behaviour, the sexual exploitation of young women, cyber-bullying, the use and misuse of drugs and alcohol, most of which are commonly associated with youth in general and youth gangs in particular. The module takes a realist, applied but critical approach in analysing these issues, drawing on official as well as more critical accounts and research studies for understanding them, and investigating existing and alternative strategies for addressing them.

Crime and disorder reduction remains a dominant issue on local and national governments' agendas. This module enables you to understand and analyse developments in crime and disorder reduction in urban localities though partnership working. You’ll examine crime and 'disorder' in its sociospatial aspects, exploring 'urban' and 'neighbourhood' dimensions of crime in the contemporary context, local modes of regulation and national-level policies to deal with neighbourhood problems, their problems and merits. Alongside the theoretical background to crime reduction, you will critically review applied practitioner solutions to crime prevention and reduction in a partnership context. The module prepares you with an understanding of key issues of public protection in the partnership context, including the National Offender Management Service (NOMS); risk assessment with regards to victims of crime; compliance to national standards; a critical appraisal of 'What Works' with offenders, tackling offending behaviour and restorative justice. The learning outcomes will enable you to develop a detailed knowledge and understanding of the theoretical and policy concepts relevant to practice within the criminal justice system.

This module aims to help you develop advanced skills in the application of criminological theories and concepts in relation to drugs, drug use, and drugs control and in critically analysing the relationship between drugs and crime. You will critically evaluate the laws, policies and institutions of drugs control within their social, political and economic contexts and compare and contrast the role of the criminal justice system in responding to drugs in various countries. The module also aims to get you to foster a critical interest in the reform of drugs control policy and institutions at both national and international levels.

This core module on the MA Criminology will introduce you to key debates about political violence and contemporary terrorism. You’ll be required to consider a range of perspectives emerging from the study of the different forms of political violence, including terrorism and war. It also adopts a critical approach to theoretical and contextual debates on the use of the term terrorism as shorthand for a range of issues relating to political violence. Both institutional and anti-institutional violence will be discussed, along with critical analysis of the controversies surrounding the definitions of violence and terrorism in the different epochs. In the module you’ll examine in detail the contributions of the major schools of thought, along with the most recent sociological-criminological analysis of authorised and unauthorised political violence. The module requires you to critically examine theoretical concepts and practical considerations in contemporary political violence and terrorism discourse drawing on a range of case studies.

The module introduces you to techniques of coding and qualitative data analysis and is specifically tailored for the use of the NVivo10 software, with the aim of developing practical skills and a critical appreciation of the benefits and disadvantages of computer software for storing, organising and analysing qualitative data. NVivo is one of the most powerful and widely used research packages for the analysis of qualitative data and you will be able to analyse a range of qualitative data such as interviews, focus group transcripts, diaries, journal articles, policy reports as well as multimedia.

This module aims to introduce you to statistics in the social sciences, presenting and discussing a variety of methods that can be applied to a broad range of research areas. You’ll approach this through critical discussion of statistical theory as well as through the application of statistical analysis techniques to small and large scale secondary data-sets. You will learn these techniques through several in-lab exercises using the software package 'SPSS' (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) - and in this way the module aims to provide you with skills in using SPSS in an analytical, non-mechanical way. The module starts from the basics of descriptive statistics aiming to build your knowledge and skills in more advanced methods, including analysis of statistical relationships, statistical tests, multivariate analysis and modelling. Finally, you will look at issues of data visualisation, reporting and interpretation of findings, through a series of case studies of relevance and interest within the social sciences.

In this module you’ll study how to learn, evaluate and experiment with the use of ethnographic digital research tools including contemporary technique and approach to digital-based and qualitative social research. You will learn how to use digital ethnography for the study of digital spaces and online interaction and apply this knowledge to the development and planning of a research project or research proposal that uses digital ethnography as a main research technique for data collection. The module is specifically designed to teach you how to devise and develop a research project or proposal using digital ethnography in an accurate, rigorous and epistemologically sound research framework. You will learn how to use the latest tools and programmes to do research on digital spaces, including data scraping and visualization, and help you navigate across the design, planning and execution of a digital ethnography, using a combination of theoretical insights, case studies and practical applications.

This core module on the MA Environmental Law and Justice critically evaluates perspectives on green criminology, and crimes against the environment (including animals). It considers contemporary perspectives on green offending, the regulation of environmental problems, and global perspectives on green crimes, green criminality and the effectiveness of justice systems in resolving environmental problems. It also adopts a critical approach to theoretical debates on animal rights, the legal personhood of animals, and the tension between the continued exploitation of natural resources and the prosecution of environmental crime. In this module you will also critically examine the link between environmental offending and mainstream crimes, including the link between violence towards animals and violence towards humans and the extent to which corporate environmental crime constitutes a ‘crime of the powerful’ or a corporate-state crime. The module will require you to critically examine theoretical concepts and practical considerations in environmental justice and consider how examining environmental harms inevitably results in a wider definition of green ‘crime’ than simply considering those activities defined as such by the criminal law. The module will also help you to develop knowledge and skills appropriate to working in the environmental justice sector with NGOs, local authorities and other policy and enforcement bodies.

This module is core to the MSc. Criminology with Forensic Psychology programme and aims to develop your understanding of how psychology interacts with the criminal justice system. You will consider the psychological and psycho-social dimensions of crime and offending, and the psycho-judicial reactions to it. The module will require you to look at key contributions psychology makes to criminal justice and its related institutions – from delinquency interventions, ‘therapeutic jurisprudence’ and specialist courts, how we understand offenders’ experiences of prison, and specialist offender assessment tools and behavioural treatment programmes both within the community and in prison settings. Through an analysis of the relationship between decisions made at different stages of the criminal justice system, such as by the police, the courts, the parole board, and the implications of those decisions at subsequent stages in the legal process, you’ll be encouraged to reflect upon the application of psychology to the practice of criminal justice.

This module aims to develop your understanding of fundamental psychological explanations of criminal behaviour, its aetiology, and its ramifications in determining criminal justice and penal responses and/or psychological treatment interventions. You will examine the synergies and connections between criminology and psychology (in particular forensic psychology), and look at how these disciplines feed into each other.

This module is aims to develop your understanding of how psychology interacts with the criminal justice system. You will consider the psychological and psycho-social dimensions of crime and offending, and the psycho-judicial reactions to it. The module will require you to look at key contributions psychology makes to criminal justice and its related institutions.

In this module you’ll use the criminal justice system and its different institutions to critically examine contemporary issues, debates and policy relating to crime control, the processing of defendants through the criminal courts, sentencing and punishment.

You can find more information about this course in the programme specification. Module and programme information is indicative and may be subject to change.