Crime, Violence and Prevention - MSc

The module seeks to critically assess recent and current policies and practices associated with crime control and community safety. Whilst there is a particular focus on England and Wales, the module also considers the international context, and some of the approaches utilised in other countries (such as the USA, Canada, and Australia).

The module seeks to provide a good grounding in the understanding and appreciation of criminological research methods. Students will be taken through the process of conducting social research from the formulation of a research question through to the completion of a [quantitative] research report. Students will learn about designing social research, data collection and analysis in a clear and accessible way. The module will enable students to determine which research methodology to apply as part of the research process. Students on this module will benefit from the experience of ‘guest’ lectures from academics with experience of conducting primary research within the field of criminology/criminal justice. Guest speakers will include, for example, University-based or Home Office researchers or those based in particular criminal justice agencies. These lectures/workshop sessions are designed to help students understand the practicalities and challenges of conducting research in the 'real world'. Students will receive tuition on quantitative data collection and analysis with a particular emphasis on the use of SPSS. During their engagement with the module, students will also be expected to make the appropriate level of reference to standard texts in research methods; this will assist in the evaluation of specific research studies, which forms a key component of the module. The module commences by providing an overview of the principal approaches in social research.

The dissertation allows the student to undertake an independent and
sustained piece of research into a substantive topic of his or her own choosing. The dissertation
must include appropriate empirical research in the field of criminology and criminal justice. It must also be grounded in related criminological theories and relate to previous criminological research.

This module will allow students to investigate the complex issue of violence through a multidisciplinary approach. It will consider the psychological, biological and social causes through criminological theory to explain specific types of violence. It includes topics such as murder, rape, assault, terrorism, violence within the family and culturally specific violence.

The module aims to identify and consider the key themes and debates associated with contemporary criminology, with a particular focus on England and Wales. The focus is on theory, although controversies in criminal justice are also visited.

This module allows students to identify and critically assess patterns in specific forms of crime and offending behaviour, as well as to consider the prevalence, characteristics and typologies of specific types of offence. Models used to explain crime and offender patterns, as well as recidivism and desistance, will be considered. These will be related to the wider theoretical criminological field.

The module aims to explore what is meant by the term 'Green Criminology'. In its broadest sense, it refers to the study of harms committed against the environment by corporations, states and also ordinary people. A growing realisation that the health of this planet is intricately linked to the health of each one of us, has led to the development of a multi-disciplinary approach within Criminology incorporating a number of theoretical and philosophical perspectives. The module will therefore make use of a wide range of contributions from Human Geography, Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology and others in order to link together and further our understanding of the complex nature of environmental harms and crimes in particular and criminogenic systems in general.

This module will focus on methodological approaches to researching forms of violence which are primarily targeted against women and children (e.g. domestic violence, rape, sexual assault and childhood sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and trafficking, crimes in the name of honour, female genital mutilation, stalking and harassment) and evaluating support and prevention initiatives/interventions. Content will cover: feminist epistemologies and power in the research process; formulating research questions; ethical dilemmas and practices; survey methods, including prevalence data; qualitative research exploring women and children’s perspectives as well as those of perpetrators; creative and arts-based methods; policy-oriented research. The second section of the module will introduce approaches to evaluation and the specific issues, challenges and opportunities when creating knowledge through evaluating interventions with victim-survivors and perpetrators of violence.

Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism. This module is in the overall context of Safety and Security, and is an advanced course in terrorism and counter-terrorism.

This module runs in block mode.