Criminology

Criminology is the study of crime, criminal behaviour, and the social institutions that respond to it. It draws on sociology, psychology, law, and history to ask fundamental questions: why do people commit crimes, how does society define what counts as criminal, and do the systems designed to prevent and punish crime actually work? These are questions with no simple answers, and criminology trains you to think rigorously about evidence, competing theories, and the social contexts that shape both offending and the responses to it.

At Teesside University, this three-year full-time degree develops both your academic knowledge and the practical skills that underpin it. You will study theories of crime and deviance, the structure and operation of the criminal justice system, questions of policing and punishment, and the social dimensions of crime including its relationship to inequality, race, gender, and age. Alongside this substantive content, you will build the research and analytical skills that are central to work in criminology and related fields, including how to find and evaluate evidence, how to think critically about claims and data, and how to present complex ideas clearly in writing and other formats.

With a typical entry tariff of 88 UCAS points, the degree is accessible to students from a range of academic starting points.

Graduates from criminology programmes go on to a wide range of careers. The criminal justice system itself, including the police, probation service, prison service, and courts, employs many criminology graduates, as do victim support organisations, youth justice teams, local authorities, and community safety partnerships. Policy roles in central and local government, research positions in think tanks and universities, and work in charities and the third sector are also common.

For those who wish to continue studying, criminology provides a good foundation for postgraduate degrees in criminology, criminal justice, social policy, law, or research methods.