Criminology and Social Care

Criminology asks why crime happens, who is most likely to experience it, how societies respond to it, and whether those responses are effective or just. Social care is the discipline concerned with supporting people facing vulnerability, disadvantage, and social exclusion, asking how services can best be organised and delivered to promote wellbeing and independence. Studied together they create a powerful lens on some of the most pressing questions in contemporary social policy: how crime and social vulnerability intersect, how communities can be supported, and how the systems designed to help can sometimes do harm.

At Liverpool Hope University, this four-year full-time programme develops your understanding of crime, criminal justice, and social care across both theoretical and applied dimensions. You will explore theories of crime and deviance, the criminal justice system, policing, probation, prisons, restorative justice, and the relationship between disadvantage and offending. Alongside that, you will study social care practice, social policy, safeguarding, and the ethical frameworks that govern work with vulnerable people.

A sandwich year places you in a professional environment for an extended period, a year abroad broadens your perspectives, and work placement experience runs throughout the programme.

Graduates are well placed for roles in probation services, youth offending teams, victim support, social work training, community development, housing support, drug and alcohol services, and policy roles in local and central government. The combined degree is particularly suited to those who want to work at the boundary of criminal justice and welfare support. Postgraduate study in social work, criminology, criminal justice, and social policy is a common progression, and many graduates also pursue professional qualifications in social work alongside or after their degree.