Criminology

Department statement

The BA Criminology programme has been running for over 20 years and has developed an identity that is both strong and unique. Our course content is contemporary and broad-ranging, and reflects the varied research expertise of the teaching team, including, for example, research-led modules on Serious and Organised Crime, Drugs and Society, Prisons, and Crime Mapping. In addition to offering a rich and diverse course led by scholars who are internationally recognised in their fields, we also provide our students with rigorous research methods and data analysis training, which significantly enhances their employability as graduates and also enables them to engage in paid Q-Step internships (nationally and internationally) at the end of Year 2, which have led to many being employed in high profile organisations such as the Home Office. The PGT programmes have also been around for a similar period of time and share many of the attributes mentioned above. We also have a unique pathway within the MRes in collaboration with Social Statistics, as a way to consolidate the aims of the Q-Step initiative (oriented to strengthen the quantitative research skills of British graduates).

We have a number of well-established strengths that set us apart from other criminology programmes. Two of these key strengths are our data courses and our award-winning Learning Criminology Inside programme: 

1. Throughout the years we have applied the proposition ‘data skills are learned through practice’ to our teaching both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Students are provided with real-world criminological data and access to free, open-source statistical software in fully prepared computer lab environments to learn the basics of descriptive and inferential statistical analysis while interacting with and exploring data to provide answers to important open research questions in their discipline. In the Department of Criminology we have developed a syllabus of criminological data analysis modules that strongly follow the principles of learn by repetitively doing, computer lab-based, real world problems-focused, and taught by substantive experts, which effectively place quantitative skills learning at the core of the criminology undergraduate and postgraduate degrees curriculum.
2. Learning Criminology Inside began in September 2017. It is a Learning Together initiative where university students learn alongside prison students in the prison setting. The course has successfully run the UG course unit ‘From Imprisonment to Rehabilitation’ three times at HMP Risley and more recently at HMP Wymott. We have also extended to postgraduate level delivering ‘Understanding Violence’ in 2018/19 and ‘Drug Markets, Consumption and Policy’ in 2019/20. We have successfully delivered to 50 university-students and 50 prison-based students. The hard work developing and running LCI has been rewarded with excellent student feedback from both University and prison-based students in terms of their enriched learning experience, and the opportunity has also influenced the career choices of our students. In May 2019, the positive social impact of Learning Criminology Inside was recognised by the University and we were awarded a Making a Difference Award for Social Responsibility for ‘Outstanding Teaching Innovation in Social Responsibility’.

There is a predominant focus in the department on issues around social injustice. We teach students about racial injustice, such as through disproportionate rates of stop and search, along with the need to understand how race intersects with other variables, such as gender and social class, to lead to a nuanced understanding of injustice. 

We also incorporate Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) into our teaching, and the Department is currently working on the ‘EDI responsive teaching curriculum’ project which aims to 1) diversify the teaching resources in the criminology curriculum to reflect the diverse range of scholars and contexts in the field and 2) suggest/embed the resources with marginalised perspectives in our teaching practice. As a part of the project, the Department is evaluating whether the current resources descriptively represent diverse perspectives and authors, and developing crowd-sourced EDI reading lists that broaden our teaching materials’ scope.

More recently, we have launched a number of new programmes. Our new distance learning MSc in Financial Crime and Compliance in Digital Societies had its first intake in February 2022 comprising 18 students who hold senior compliance positions at global banks, other financial sector organisations, financial regulators, law firms, and the pharmaceutical industry. Students are based around the world, including Jersey, Guernsey, Bermuda, UAE, Singapore, Hong Kong, Pakistan and the UK. The second cohort will commence in September 2022 and it will run annually from then. The programme is delivered through a combination of online materials (textual, video, tasks, quizzes, discussions, etc), one-on-one discussion with tutors, and weekend ‘masterclasses’ held at the University. This programme has been developed in collaboration with the International Compliance Association, and provides a unique and innovative programme in its combination of academic and practical content and its focus on the digital aspects of financial crime compliance. 

In September 2023, we will launch our new BA in Global Social Challenges (GSC) programme. GSC is a unique, transdisciplinary programme that has been designed with employability skills and the student learning experience at its core. The programme provides the opportunity for students to consider and address some of the world’s most pressing and urgent challenges, such as climate change, social injustice, migration, and violence, by drawing on a range of social science disciplines, including criminology, economics, law, philosophy, politics, social anthropology, social statistics, and sociology. A range of perspectives from the Global North and Global South will be key to the programme, therefore students from across the world are welcome to apply. The teaching will be transdisciplinary, with staff from across the School of Social Sciences co-teaching on the programme (e.g., staff from criminology and politics delivering a workshop together). This will give students a genuine transdisciplinary learning experience through ‘problem-based learning’, where understanding a social challenge is the starting point, and disciplinary perspectives are built in around that challenge. The programme offers international field trips and  optional study abroad and placement years in order to give students opportunities for networking and professional development. 

We have recently submitted proposals to establish the BA Criminology with Professional Placement Year, which will begin to accept expressions of interest from 2023 with the first work placement year in 2025-6. We are building links with potential placement organisations to add to CareerConnect but students will be expected to self-source their placements. BA Global Social Challenges will also have optional professional placement and study abroad years, with the first in 2025-6.

Our BA Criminology is being reviewed to see if key course units meet the requirements for PQIP (probation training), and if approved, will be one of only four such accredited universities, further bolstering the already buoyant demand for the programme, which has increased and sustained its intake substantially in recent years, and raised its tariff from ABB to AAB. 

We will roll out an online package drug-focussed interdisciplinary CPD units that target a broad range of international, local, academic and practitioner participants in 2023-4. The courses integrate rights-based perspectives, applied learning and conceptual knowledge, and will enable consideration of topics from perspectives of therapeutic and medical application, law and ethics, and history, development and governance. In the first phase, CPD content will align with contemporary debates and thematic issues in drug policy including: women, race and drug policy, international development, psychedelic medicine, sex on drugs, and medical cannabis. Units will be delivered through the Future Learning and Coursera platforms, and within existing teaching programmes at UoM. We consider the CPD modules an important contribution to UK Higher Education, addressing a major gap in teaching and training provision and promoting collaborative learning and networking between clinical, pharmacological and social science. Criminology at Manchester is in discussion with colleagues in the Department of Politics at the University of Glasgow in trialling joint online specialist course provision under the rubric of the Manchester / Glasgow digital collaboration initiative. The modules will provide the building blocks and market testing for an MA in Interdisciplinary Drug Policy Studies.

Information about studying Criminology at The University of Manchester

People in the Criminology Department