Law with Criminology

Law and criminology is a pairing that places legal study alongside a social scientific understanding of crime, criminal justice, and the structural forces that shape both offending and society's response to it. Law provides the technical and analytical framework of the legal system: the rules, rights, and remedies through which disputes are resolved and conduct regulated. Criminology asks the deeper questions about why those rules exist as they do, who they serve, who is most likely to be caught up in the system as suspect, victim, or professional, and whether criminal justice policy actually works.

Studying them together develops a critical and reflective approach to legal questions that goes beyond technical competence.

At the University of Derby, this part-time programme with an integrated foundation year is designed for students who need additional preparation before undertaking degree-level study, making it accessible to people returning to education or coming from non-traditional academic backgrounds. The foundation year builds the legal literacy, analytical skills, and academic writing competence needed to engage with the full degree. From there you will work through the core areas of English law, including contract, tort, criminal law, constitutional and administrative law, and land law, alongside the criminological theory, research methods, and policy engagement that characterise the criminology strand.

Derby Law School is attentive to the changing professional landscape for those seeking to qualify as solicitors, and the programme is designed to provide the flexibility needed to pursue legal professional qualifications alongside or after your degree.

You will develop strong analytical, research, and communication skills, together with the critical perspective on law and justice that comes from engaging with criminological scholarship.

Graduates go on to careers in legal practice, the criminal justice system, social work, policy, research, and the third sector. Postgraduate legal qualifications, graduate entry programmes, and postgraduate study in criminology are well-supported routes.