Criminology with Psychology BSc (Hons)

Explore the world of criminal behaviour with our dynamic module, Explaining Criminal Behaviour. Explore the psychological aspects of crime, unravelling diverse theories to discover the motivations behind criminal actions. This module guides you through a critical examination of human behaviour, emphasising foundational concepts like psychopathy, personality disorders, and behavioural disorders.

From cognitive processes to social learning, gain invaluable insights into the driving forces behind criminal decision-making. Engaging case studies and empirical research bring theory to life, allowing you to analyse the intricate relationship between psychological factors and criminal conduct. Address both psychological and societal perspectives for a well-rounded viewpoint, fostering cultural competence and adaptability—key attributes in the diverse landscape of criminological professions.

This module aims to demonstrate a critical insight into policing and its role within modern society. This includes in-depth discussion on relevant legislation, the exercise of powers granted to the role and the issues involved with this. You will have to analyse the tension between the theory and practice of the police. You will also be equipped with an understanding of the issues affecting the police organisation more broadly, such as accountability, diversity and community support.

Our Real World Criminology module is your personalised roadmap to connect your learning about crime with your future job goals. It guides you in identifying career pathways aligned with your interests, reflecting on your existing strengths, recognising areas for growth, and enhancing your academic skills, professional competencies, and work experience.

The module will immerse you in the diverse landscape of criminology and criminal justice-related professions, such as law enforcement, working with offenders, community safety, and research and policy roles. Along the way, you will benefit from valuable insights and opportunities shared by the UWL Careers and Volunteering team, ensuring you stay informed about employment and volunteering prospects. Showcase your journey through a comprehensive career planning and development portfolio, the key to unlocking your full potential.

This module will provide you with the opportunity to develop an understanding of the definition and characteristics of serial killers. You will have the opportunity to look at origins, statistics, characteristics, phases of serial killing, types (depending on conditionings, mobility, planning and nature of their ritual actions), capacity to elude apprehension, and differences between serial, mass and spree murderers.

Researching crime and criminal justice is complex. This module, therefore, examines the challenges inherent in researching crime and criminal justice. You will assess the usefulness of surveys, questionnaires, interviews schedules, data and content analysis. This module will examine these research methods in a practical way and assess, by using national and international examples, the impact of research in criminal justice practice. Research methods devoid of its practical application are limited but this module reaches beyond this by employing practical exercises in class and will build an in-depth understanding of how we research crime and criminal justice matters.

The module aims to introduce you to key concepts, theories and research findings in the area of forensic psychology. You will explore how psychological research has informed our understanding of psychology and research in the ‘forensic mental health’ context. This module promotes a scientific approach to understanding key topics in the area of forensic psychology.

The criminology dissertation is a rewarding year-long project that explores your interests in criminology. Serving as the culmination of your degree, the dissertation highlights your expertise, analytical skills, and research abilities. Benefit from a supportive relationship with an expert supervisor who guides your academic development. Regular consultations with your supervisor will address challenges, refine your approach, and ensure a high-quality dissertation by the deadline.

Gain essential skills for both academia and the professional world—navigating challenges, refining approaches, and meeting deadlines. This comprehensive approach facilitates a smooth transition from academia to the workforce, solidifying your impact in the field of criminology. 

The module aims to introduce students to advance psychological approaches to crime and criminal behaviour. This module helps students to take an in-depth view of the way psychology has been used in the forensic context to explain and control crime. We will explore some of the ways in which forensic psychology contributes to the day to day operations of Criminal Justice System and our interactions with both offenders and victims of crime. By the end of the module, students should be able to recognise the relationships between criminal behaviour and other social problems, identify and assess the ways in which forensic psychology may contribute to the operation of Criminal Justice system, have an understanding of the causes of crime, and make use of research evidence, and  psychosocial theories in developing arguments and making judgements about criminological issues.

This module focuses on the theoretical understanding of why individuals and organizations commit corrupt acts. Most theoretical approaches that explain corruption fall under the disciplines of political science, law and economics with some reference to sociology and/or criminology. This module combines all of these approaches to address this imbalance but expands on the theoretical frameworks currently used in the corruption literature and helps broaden the discussion on why and how individuals, organizations and states commit corrupt acts. This module draws on sociology, criminology, law, politics and economics in trying to explain why and how individual, organizations and states commit corruption.  

This module also addresses the different ways in which to tackle corruption. Since corruption can range from legal but morally condemned acts to highly illegal and criminal acts this module will examine what is referred to as a continuum of corruption and the different ways in which to tackle it. Whilst corruption is an international problem that cuts across national borders this module will review local solutions, power of pressure groups to highlight corruption, anti-corruption campaigns that name and shame corrupt businesses and the impact this has as well as different types of law enforcement on individuals and organizations employing a financial penalty, banning people from employment in a specific sector, imprisonment of individuals or a combination of these.

For this module, you will have to focus on the study of punishment, in prison and in the community. The module will provide you with some of the major theoretical developments in the aim of this module is to introduce the main ideas, concepts and perspectives that are found in modern penology. Penology’ is the study of punishment. The module will try to address questions such as Why should offenders be punished? Why do we have a penal system? Why does punishment take different forms in different societies and at different stages in history?

This module encourages you to think critically about the multiple purposes and debatable effectiveness of our contemporary modes of punishment.

During this module,  you will look closely at this topical and key aspect of the criminal justice system and criminological research. You will explore the growth of the victims’ rights movement, how this has translated into policy and practice, as well as suggestions for reform to improve victims’ experiences of the criminal justice system. You will also examine theoretical approaches to victimology, the role of statistics and the media around victimisation, as well as factors affecting vulnerability to victimisation. Finally, you will have to consider victimisation across a range of more specific topic areas.

This module aims to deliver a theoretically informed understanding of the interaction between media representation, crime, and criminal justice. You will develop an understanding and appreciation of the significance of media narratives and images relating to criminal offences and offenders, for different audiences. In doing so, you will reflect on the significance of popular culture portrayals of crime on perceptions and on the reality of crime and criminal justice. You will also have to consider the extent to which the media undermines or bolsters existing structures of power and authority.

The module aims at equipping the participants with advanced conceptual, theoretical and methodological skills regarding the phenomenon of terrorism focusing on critical academic perspectives and main challenges faced by law enforcement agencies and counter-terrorism strategies. The module will assess the theories and concepts from criminology, sociology, political science, security and international law examining relevant case studies of terrorist activities worldwide. The aim is to provide the students with an introduction to understanding what factors contribute to terrorism and radicalisation, and how the governments counter this threat. At the same time, the dilemmas involved in the global policing of terrorism and preventing radicalisation will be also explored and critically analysed.  

The aim of this module is to provide you with a critical examination of the contemporary phenomenon of cybercrime and strategies for its control. You will explore the origins, definitions, activities, perpetrators and victims of cyber-enabled and cyber-dependent crimes, as well as the nature and challenges of internet governance, cyber security, digital investigation and justice for cyber criminals.

The module explores the relationships between social and cultural ways of understanding identity formation through ideas of ‘high’, ‘low’ and ‘popular’ culture, which are arguably central to our understanding of ‘self’ and ‘other’ in our everyday lives. Consequently, we will interrogate how language and symbolism give meaning to everyday social arrangements, forcing us to challenge the traditional criteria for self-identity, belonging and group membership in a rapidly shrinking global world. This means that criteria such as class, gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, occupation, political affiliation, which would be used to understand your structural placement in society in the past, are now unstable and always in flux. This has resulted in looser and more fluid social arrangements where particular, formerly discrete notions of race and ethnicity, as somewhat fixed and rooted in time and place, are no longer viable ways of ‘knowing’.  This is because our social, political and cultural identities transcend narrow local, national and international forms of identification as many locate themselves as global citizens.  

Moreover, with the radical shift in social stability in the UK as a consequence of BREXIT, the influx of Eastern Europeans and the issues surrounding refugees and economic migrants, we are faced with very public debates on Britishness and who does and does not belong. This contemporary climate and the increase in far-right extremism in many ways mirrors what happened with the influx of West Indians - The Windrush Generation - in Post War Britain. Therefore, the module will examine how our understanding of race and ethnicity are dependent upon a system of shared meanings and practices, that cannot be reduced to a simple dichotomy between a ‘white’ and ‘non-white’ presence, to determine who does and does not belong in contemporary Britain. Consequently, there will be discussions of the different theoretical and methodological approaches to the analysis of popular culture, and its association with cultural artefacts such as language, signs and symbols.  

This module focuses on applied intelligence analysis. It will offer you with a foundation of human reasoning, providing you with a footing from which to comprehend and conduct critical analyses aimed to assess threats including the development of responses to threats, perspectives on threat action, principles of threat analysis and response, and assessments of successes and failures of such actions.