Criminology

Criminology is the systematic study of crime, criminals, and criminal justice. It draws on sociology, psychology, law, and political science to ask fundamental questions about why crime occurs, how it is distributed across society, how the criminal justice system responds, and whether those responses are effective, fair, and proportionate. It is a discipline that demands both analytical rigour and a willingness to engage with difficult moral and political questions about punishment, rehabilitation, inequality, and the limits of state power.

At Anglia Ruskin University, this three-year full-time programme develops your critical thinking through a combination of theoretical study and direct engagement with the realities of criminal justice. You will explore the major criminological traditions, from classical and positivist approaches through to critical and feminist criminology, and you will examine how these frameworks help us understand different forms of crime and different institutional responses. Research methods training enables you to work with evidence, including both statistical data on crime patterns and qualitative accounts of experience within the criminal justice system.

The programme brings you into contact with the real workings of that system, through case studies, the latest research, and interactive sessions, and through the possibility of field trips to courts, prisons, and significant sites that illuminate the human dimensions of crime and punishment.

Graduates from criminology programmes enter careers in probation, the prison service, police forces, social work, victim support, youth offending services, community organisations, policy research, and journalism. The analytical skills you develop are valued in a wide range of graduate roles beyond the criminal justice sector. Further study options include postgraduate programmes in criminology, criminal justice, social policy, and law, as well as professional qualifications that can open specific practitioner pathways.