Criminology and Sociology, BSc (Hons), with industry placement

Course summary

Explore the nature of crime and the criminal justice system in modern society with our leading academics and through our links with partners like HMP Exeter and Landworks. Develop key skills for your future, whether it’s in probation, policing or youth justice so you’re ready to navigate the challenges society is facing. Look within and beyond the city of Plymouth itself, with walking tours to understand the local community and hands-on projects with local rehabilitation and victim charities.

• Get involved – Boost your chances of finding that perfect first job and gain hands-on experience. A dedicated criminology employability officer provides students with a range of opportunities to build their portfolio of experience with local and national criminal and social justice related agencies. Additionally each year, our students work with the Devon and Cornwall Police to create a real campaign to tackle issues impacting the student community, like online scams.

• Innovative teaching – Our teaching is informed by innovative teaching methods and use of contemporary technologies including VR, AI and exploration of forensic techniques and analysis. We actively encourage students to interrogate the boundaries of criminological ideas. Experience our pioneering module with HMP Exeter, where students learn about rehabilitation inside prison walls.

• Contemporary focus – The course identifies and focuses on emergent issues in criminology and criminal justice throughout all stages of study. The programme learns from the past, considers the present and looks to the future of criminological enquiry.

• Research led – As leading scholars in their fields of research, the criminology team have strong national and international research profiles. Criminology students benefit from the close ties criminology staff have with criminal and wider social justice agencies. These ties provide students with excellent research opportunities and an embedded approach to employability within their modules, as well as an optional placement year.

• In demand – Open doors to a career in the private, public or third sector – highly transferable skills mean you will find career opportunities in a diverse range of settings. Our graduates are highly sought after by a range of criminal justice agencies, including the police, probation, prison and youth justice services.

• Create change – Draw on our inter-disciplinary approach to study, with a focus on contemporary issues, to gain real insight into the nature of crime, the workings of the criminal justice system and the society around you and equip yourself with the skills to bring about real change and make a difference.

In your first year you’ll explore various perspectives on criminology and examine theories on the causes of crime and deviance. You’ll develop an understanding of the criminal justice process in England and Wales, and examine crime in the context of economic, political and social frameworks. You’ll also study key sociological concepts and theories, with topics including poverty and social exclusion, work, community, religion, media, crime, education, globalisation, and consumer culture. In your second year you’ll advance your awareness of criminological theory to understand social process that underpin crime and criminal justice. Your understanding of criminology will take you to consider beyond crime to include broader social harms. You’ll also extend your critical reasoning skills as you examine processes of social change and explore consumer culture, ethnicity, globalisation and politics and the State, in historical and contemporary perspective. Gain valuable on-the-job experience through our optional placement year. We will support you in your second year in deciding whether to take this opportunity, and assist you in finding a placement and being prepared for it. In your final year, you’ll design and implement your own research project to produce your dissertation, working independently with the support of a member of our academic team. You will also study modules that reflect new, emerging trends in criminology that utilise current local, national and world issues. This includes green criminology, leisure and deviancy, violence and harm, justice in practice, social change and global issues such as state crime, war and terrorism. Or you can explore sociology in greater depth through modules including the mass media, drugs in society, health and the body. The modules shown for this course or programme are those being studied by current students, or expected new modules. Modules are subject to change depending on year of entry and up to date information can be found on our website