Criminology and Criminal Justice

The taught Masters programme requires satisfactory completion of at least 180 credits. The MA programme in Criminology and Criminal Justice includes four 30-credit module blocks and one 60-credit dissertation of 15-20,000 words. All module blocks include at least 12 teaching sessions. The programme includes, in chronological order:
Contemporary Criminology: Theory and Practice
Researching Crime and Criminal Justice
Contemporary Challenges in Criminal Justice
Advanced Topics in Criminology and Criminal Justice. Alternatively, Ethical Issues in Criminal Justice (dependent upon student numbers and resources permitting)
Each module block comprises the following:
Three days of intensive face-to-face contact between staff and students. Each day is sub-divided into four thematically linked sessions and several members of staff contribute to each day.
Course Modules
Contemporary Criminology: Theory and Practice
This module block will introduce you to criminological theories and perspectives. However, in contrast to many if not most theoretical modules in criminology, this module block explicates theories or perspectives in criminology by applying them to particular issues and problems. This module block will thus include sessions on topics such as (e.g.):
the political economy of crime and crime control in the 21st century; biopolitics of security; crime, crime control and the modern imagination; crime, disorder and the governance of space; crime, historical and global contexts; consumerism, popular culture, and crime; the phenomenology of ‘edgework’; terrorism, organized crime, and complexity; cultural and critical criminology; post-structuralism and criminology.

The list of subjects may vary from year to year depending on e.g. staff availability. It is however anticipated that the majority of sessions and/or topics will recur year after year.
Researching Crime and Criminal Justice
This module block includes sessions on topics such as (e.g.):
interpreting quantitative research data; researching fear of crime; interpreting qualitative research data; ethnographic research; research on urban dynamics and migration; uses and misuses of statistics; databases and datasets in criminology and criminal justice; oral history and documentary analysis in criminal justice studies; researching courts and prisons; research in cultural and critical criminology; feminist research in criminology and criminal justice.
Contemporary Challenges in Criminal Justice
This module block will introduce you to a number of contemporary issues and developments in criminal justice and governance studies. The module includes sessions on issues such as (e.g.):
risk society, surveillance, and actuarial justice; plural policing and nodal governance; late modern precautionary culture; technology and criminal justice; fines and fixed penalties; criminal injustice and miscarriages of justice; the expanding prisoner complex; prison life and prison work; community, crime and criminal justice; policing the state of exception; transitional justice and reconciliation.
Advanced Topics in Criminology and Criminal Justice (or, alternatively, Ethical Issues in Criminal Justice)
This module block consists of sessions on topics proposed by students themselves, as well as sessions based on individual staff members’ and dissertation supervisors’ expertise.