Criminology and Film & Visual Culture

Criminology and Film and Visual Culture is an unusual and intellectually rich combination that brings together the sociological analysis of crime and justice with the critical study of how the visual world represents, constructs, and shapes our understanding of both. Criminology examines why crime happens, how it is defined and contested, what happens in the criminal justice system, and how society responds to deviance. Film and visual culture adds a different but complementary lens: asking how cinema, television, documentary, and other visual media portray crime, criminalise certain groups, and influence public attitudes to justice and punishment.

At Liverpool Hope University, this three-year full-time degree allows you to develop expertise in both disciplines while discovering the significant overlap between them. You will engage with criminological theory, the sociology of deviance, policing, penology, and victimology alongside film theory, visual analysis, and the history and criticism of cinema and media. The interplay between the two subjects is particularly productive: representations of crime in film often reflect and reinforce social assumptions about who is dangerous and who deserves protection, and the criminological perspective sharpens your reading of those representations considerably.

The programme includes a sandwich year, a year abroad, and a work placement, giving you professional and international experience alongside your academic studies.

The analytical and communication skills you develop are genuinely transferable. Close reading, evidence evaluation, written argument, and the ability to think critically about representation and power are all capacities that employers in many fields value.

Graduates go on to careers in criminal justice, media, journalism, arts administration, social research, education, the voluntary sector, and policy. Some pursue further professional training in law, social work, or teaching, while others continue to postgraduate study in criminology, film, or media studies.