Introduction to Criminology Course Descriptor

Course Overview

Criminology, as a discipline, attempts to understand what causes crime to occur and how society responds to crime. To do so, criminologists conduct research studies using a wide variety of methods from data-driven statistics to interviews and focus groups. Based on such work, criminologists have made different arguments regarding the factors that drive crime as well as the factors that drive the nature of crime responses. This course will provide an overview of these different perspectives, generally focusing on those which have received the most attention within the field.

Course Aims

This course aims to:

1. Teach students how criminologists have classically thought about and researched crime.
2. Discuss theories of crime and delinquency.     
3. Examine how a criminological perspective can help us analyse and interpret contemporary issues and phenomena that relate to crime and the criminal justice system.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Professional Skills

Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning strategies for this course will usually include:     

• A minimum of 36 contact hours, typically to include interactive group teaching, co-curriculars, individual meetings, in-class presentations and exams.
• Course information and supplementary materials are available on the University’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
• Students will receive individualised developmental feedback on their work for this course.
• Students are required to attend and participate in all the formal and timetabled sessions for this course. Students are also expected to manage their directed learning and independent study in support of the course.

Assessment

Formative

Students will be formatively assessed in class through class activities, and during office hours. Formative assessments are ones that do not count towards the final grade but will provide students with developmental feedback.  

Summative

Further information on the structure of summative assessment elements can be found in the Summative Assessment Briefs.

Feedback

Students will receive feedback in a variety of ways: written (including via email correspondence); oral (within office hours or on an ad hoc basis) and indirectly through class discussion.

Feedback on examinations is provided through generic internal examiners’ reports and are made available to the student on the VLE. For all other summative assessment methods, feedback is made available to the student either via email, the VLE or another appropriate method.   

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is used as part of the approval/modification process only.

Books 

Gehring, K.S., & Batistia, M.R. (2016). CrimComics Issue 1: Origins of Criminology. Oxford University Press. 

“Broken Windows’ and the Meanings of Disorder” from Sampson, R. J. (2012). Great American City: Chicago and the enduring neighborhood effect. University of Chicago Press 

Journals

Chamberlain, A. W., & Hipp, J. R. (2015). It’s all relative: Concentrated disadvantage within and across neighborhoods and communities, and the consequences for neighborhood crime. Journal of Criminal Justice, 43(6), 431-443. 

Wacquant, L. (2000). The newpeculiar institution’: On the prison as surrogate ghetto. Theoretical criminology, 4(3), 377-389. 

Indicative Topics

Students may study the following topics: 

• Mass incarceration
• Big data and crime
• Broken Windows theory