This is the time of the year we meet a lot of prospective students who come to one of our discovery/open days telling us why they wish to join us! I have taken some of their ideas and put them into content reflecting on our curriculum and the programme(s) we offer at the UON

I have read something in my sociology textbook, it was talking about deviant behaviour, and I thought to myself; that is interesting!  I was reading in a psychology textbook something about a doll that adults are hitting and the kids watching them emulate their behaviour and I thought, if that explains the behaviour in my school when the kids used to fight.  I was going over my notes in religious education talking about ethics and morality and I wondered if we are born with an innate moral compass that tell us right from wrong.  The starting point in all three examples is curiosity.  We explore some ideas at school, we hear stories in the news, and we are intrigued.  The name sounds interesting because at the end of deviance lies crime, in the explanation of doll hitting the behaviour is violence and at the end of the questions about morality, rests criminality.  For some others the curiosity comes from a true crime book that describes how a monstrous killer was able to kill two schoolgirls whilst joining the town in their search: or after watching a documentary of this female serial killer who worked as a sex worker and occasionally killed her punters.  Maybe it was that crime series about this seemingly nice, terminally ill schoolteacher who started making drugs and selling them to gangs. 

Any of the above sound exciting, interesting to enroll in at a university of your choice.  In fact, every year hundreds of UK students will choose to study criminology in one of the different available ways to study it across the country.  The curiosity and interest materialise and in recent years criminology has overtaken several cognate disciplines in terms of student numbers.  Universities have invested in teams delivering renditions of criminology across the country. Our version of criminology is focused on multidisciplinary perspectives exploring different theoretical conventions and helping our students to grow in confidence in an area that is both fascinating and complex. Firstly we dispel the mythology on criminology from the reality and the scientific explorations of the discipline. We provide the relevant examples to see the evolution of thought and the development of perspectives. Then we work with our students to acquire the skills to seek out the information that will become their knowledge base. We encourage the development of independence, creativity and critical analysis.

In a recent session with finalists, one student commented that she found criminology challenging. It is a discipline that looks at crime and its aftermath but also considers that as a phenomenon crime is a social construct. In other words, of course its complex; we are talking about harm and the effects/causes it has on individuals and the wider society; but understanding how crime is generated, the impact it has and the ways we can address the “problem of crime” is an insightful educational experience. Like going up a mountain, you may feel the strain and pain of doing it whilst at the base camp or halfway but once you reach the peak, you get views of something else. For those who wish to join us; be open to new perspectives and be prepared to have your mind blown!

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BA (Hons) Criminology

BA (Hons) Criminology with Psychology