MA Comparative Criminology

Module: 7CJ003

Credits: 60

Period: 1

Type: Core

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

The MA Comparative Criminology Dissertation aims to provide you with the opportunity to: • Research an area of criminological/criminal justice interest in considerable depth • Further develop your critical and analytical research skills • Evaluate criminological evidence, argument and theory • Undertake Masters-level independent study within the framework of dedicated staff supervision • Further develop organisational, time-management and writing skills • Produce a substantial piece (15,000 word maximum) [with 10%+/- discretion] of original, independently researched work demonstrating considerable depth of enquiry into a criminological/criminal justice topic and competence in a range of critical, analytical, evaluative and synthesising skills in relation to criminological sources and methodological practices

Module: 7HS006

Credits: 20

Period: 1

Type: Core

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

This module will provide both a theoretical and as well as a more applied understanding of social and historical research methods. It will fuse sociological and historical methods, thereby providing you with the knowledge you need to adapt to new branches of enquiry that develop, and put you in a position to contribute to their development especially since many of them make considerable use of approaches developed by the field of sociology. On this module you will be asked to consider first major schools and controversies in relation to what constitutes knowledge. This will foreground consideration of specific research techniques which will be applied in the latter part of the module. Taken together, this will equip students to complete the module assignment: a 4000 word research proposal for the respective MA dissertation module that normally follows in Semester 2.

Module: 7CJ006

Credits: 20

Period: 1

Type: Optional

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

The module aims to provide students with a critical understanding of key issues within the discipline of victimology related to social harm or what is termed zemiology (e.g. violence, oppression and inequality). The module will explore theoretical approaches to understanding social harms and how we respond to social harms nationally and globally from both criminal and social justice perspectives.

Module: 7CJ005

Credits: 20

Period: 1

Type: Optional

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

This module will provide students with a critical understanding of a number of contemporary issues within criminology and criminal justice. A diverse range of issues, theory, and praxis will be covered in order to give students a relevant and up-to-date overview of the important and emerging issues in contemporary criminal justice. Both national and international issues will be covered to provide an insight into global criminal justice and criminology. Areas to be critically studied and discussed will vary from cybercrime to restorative justice to environmental crime. On completing this module students should have an advanced critical understanding of various contemporary issues in criminal justice, the theories behind these, and the problems inherent with achieving ‘real-world’ justice.

Module: 7CJ004

Credits: 20

Period: 1

Type: Optional

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

Every action in the administration of justice is directed by the moral of a rule or policy, or by the moral judgement of the practitioner who implements it. The module will introduce students to the fundamentals of ethical theory and rules of moral judgement which underpin the criminal justice system. Students will examine the moral grounds for some choices, such as the choice to arrest, to treat the public equitably and to impose punishment, and the tensions and controversies which surround them.

Module: 7CJ002

Credits: 20

Period: 1

Type: Optional

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

This module will investigate the significant changes made to the English penal system throughout the twentieth century; from the introduction of changes brought about from the findings of the influential Gladstone Departmental Committee on Prisons Report (1895), the abolition of hard labour in prisons from 1948 and the numerous problems with overcrowding experienced in the last quarter of the twentieth century. It will also focus on efforts both to reform the existing system and to instigate alternatives to imprisonment as the major form of punishment in English society.

Module: 7CJ009

Credits: 20

Period: 1

Type: Optional

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

This module will analyse the growth of Transnational Policing or the 'blue web'. It will do this in three main stages or themes from the Theorising surrounding Global or Transnational Policing (globalisation and the state, police sub-cultural theory, different types of transnational policing and security culture), the Structures and Architecture of Transnational Policing and Enforcement (global, regional, national and private policing networks, trust, co-operation or competition?) and a critical evaluation of its effectiveness in practice such as transnational spaces (borders, iborders/cyberspace, ports, seas, etc.) transnational problems (drugs, guns, finance) and people (criminals, terrorists and migrants).

Module: 7CJ007

Credits: 20

Period: 1

Type: Optional

Locations: Wolverhampton City Campus

This module will give students the opportunity to gain experience of the day to day working of service providers and to apply their theoretical knowledge in these settings. Students will use a work placement (existing or new, paid or volunteer position) to understand the context in which service providers operate and the challenges that they face. Students will use this module to develop their individual career plans and enhance the skills needed in their preferred area of work. The module will be delivered through workshops and individual tutorials

The course draws on the expertise of internationally established researchers based at the University of Wolverhampton. Each module is led by scholars who have published widely in many aspects of comparative criminology.

Each module is informed by books, articles and cutting-edge research authored by University of Wolverhampton academics that have made new knowledge available to practitioners as well as significant interventions into key debates on the past, present and future of criminology and criminal justice. The inter-disciplinary nature of the MA gives it a unique and broader focus and content that that offered on programmes at many other institutions, which tend to focus largely on either research or law.

The MA in Comparative Criminology provides students with a pathway into various careers. The range of skills developed throughout the course ensures that graduates will be well equipped to work in a range of crime and criminal justice fields, and further afield: for example the Crown Prosecution Service, Charitable organisations, think-tanks, the National Office for Statistics, the Home Office, fraud investigators, immigration officers, and crime prevention/law enforcement areas. Students will also be able to draw on the wider research culture of the Faculty; the team have, over the past two years developed significant links with outside agencies such as the Parole Board, the Independent Monitoring Board, representatives of the English Collective of Prostitutes, the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, HMP YOI Brinsford, the ShannonTrust, the Magistrates’ Association and many other organisations and charitable bodies. These links enable the team to ensure that students are given the opportunity to receive guest lectures and seminars from representatives of these bodies that greatly enhance their learning experience.

• Demonstrate self-direction and originality in tackling and solving problems, and act autonomously in planning and implementing tasks at a professional or equivalent level.
• Demonstrate originality in the application of knowledge, together with a practical understanding of how established techniques of research and enquiry are used to create and interpret knowledge in the discipline.
• Deal with complex issues both systematically and creatively, make sound judgements in the absence of complete data, and communicate your conclusions clearly to specialist and non-specialist audiences.
• Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of techniques applicable to your own research or advanced scholarship and ability to continue to advance your knowledge and understanding, and to develop new skills to a high level.

• Demonstrate a systematic understanding of knowledge, and a critical awareness of current problems and/or new insights, much of which is at, or informed by, the forefront of your academic discipline, field of study or area of professional practice with a conceptual understanding that enables the student

  • to evaluate critically current research and advanced scholarship in the discipline
  • to evaluate methodologies and develop critiques of them and, where appropriate, to propose new hypotheses

• Demonstrate the qualities and transferable skills necessary for employment requiring:

  • the exercise of initiative and personal responsibility
  • decision-making in complex and unpredictable situations
  • the independent learning ability required for continuing professional development.

Location Mode