STUDY

This module is designed to help you begin your career and progression planning and includes self-assessment, target setting and job role investigations. The development of your academic and professional skills is essential to securing and developing careers as well as being a flexible professional able to adapt to diverse and international organisations.

This module adopts a multi-disciplinary and inter-agency perspective in relationship to the welfare and safeguarding of children and adults. Of increasing concern in society is modern slavery, human trafficking, and the exploitation of children in County Lines. You will critically examine key concepts and theoretical explanations of abuse as well as the effects that abuse has on individuals. You are encouraged to make links with personal values, feelings, and perceptions of safeguarding and how these impact on professional contexts.

Statistically people from low socio-economic groups and minority groups are overrepresented in the Criminal Justice System (CJS) and a substantial proportion of the people in the CJS face some form of discrimination or disadvantage because of being from a range of groups experiencing different challenges. You need an awareness of this and an understanding of how prejudice and discrimination is constructed, how inequalities are structural but can be redressed through legislation, provision of services and resources and the module aims to support a reflective consideration of your own values and beliefs

This module investigates the development through history of criminal institutions, the police, justice, sentencing and criminality. The history of crime considers what are socially accepted definitions of order and disorder, how crime is characterised, perceptions of fear and safety, treatment of the poor & the mentally ill, women and minorities, social change, ways of maintaining order, and public expectations of justice in society.

This module explores links between attitudes towards welfare and criminality and explains how social policy is shaped by social attitudes and why certain actions are criminalised by the state. The public’s insecurities about crime are often out of proportion to the reality of crime, reasons for fear of crime are linked to sensationalising mass media, politicians who use fear to influence attitudes towards welfare spending, and public consensus about what is tolerable in terms of certain social conditions and social groups.

This module introduces a range of sociological explanations for crime in our society and provides a basis for developing understanding about approaches to dealing with and explaining crime and the way in which societies respond to defining, explaining and managing criminal activities and the effects of crime.

This module explores behaviour and the range of psychological explanations for aggression, oppression and criminality. You will look at the types of offenders; the development of criminal behaviour, attitudes and perceptions and their role in shaping definitions and punishment, considering key approaches in psychology. You will begin to critically explain the influences of psychological perspectives in the field of crime and justice.

This module is designed to explore social attitudes towards mental illness particularly around culpability, blame, punishment, and rehabilitation. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has widely identified the link between social responses to mental health disorders and the disproportionately high rate of mental disorders in prisons, and you will consider this from a national and international perspective. This module will also provide you with more detailed knowledge about the range of disorders found amongst offenders, and will build upon your studies at level 4 by exploring social, psychological, cultural and political dynamics that define and respond to mental illness.

Restorative Justice is lauded as a key success in Youth Offending and Youth Services and schools employ restorative principles and techniques to support healthy management of behaviour. This module explores what Restorative Justice is, how it can be used and the features of good practice. This module will also explore explanations of youth crime, ages of criminal responsibility, links between law and order and social policy, youth justice policies and recent legislative reform.

This module is designed to provide you with an introduction to research methods used in the social sciences and includes consideration of methodology and data analysis for both quantitative and qualitative data. You will be introduced to research processes and the role of research in developing policy and practice in society and for the Criminal Justice sector.

This module develops awareness and understanding of the theories and practice of communication which is an essential for the development of employability skills and the need to work collaboratively with the justice sector. This module is designed to enable you to develop and evaluate your communication skills.

This module will encourage you to consider the role of the media in shaping crime, causing crime, what we understand as criminal behaviour and in creating moral panic. Using classic examples, you will investigate the different sources of media to further explore and evaluate contemporary issues in attitudes and concerns around crime and society and criminal justice. The notion of media will extend to cyber-crime, surveillance, and global monitoring from the traditional forms of news, literature, film, and television.

This module will help to develop employability skills, plan and prepare for your future by exploring teamwork, management and leadership. In addition, it is important to consider and examine organisational behaviour, theories of organisation and structure utilising sociological, and psychological theories.

This module builds on previous study undertaken and takes as its basis the developed knowledge and understanding of research methodology, principles, values and process. It provides you with an opportunity to carry out an in-depth investigation on a topic of your choice and seeks to equip you with the skills of project planning, design, analysis and critical evaluation.

This module will encourage you to consider the processes of globalisation in shaping crime, causing crime and constructing our understanding of crime and criminal behaviour. You will further explore key contemporary topics and tensions created by the transnationalism of crime, including urgent global risks and challenges, ranging from cybercrime, modern slavery, organised immigration crime to environmental crime and justice.

This module will support you to reflect on your career planning at the start of the course, to look at the personal development you have experienced and to consider your employability skills at a higher level. In order to develop your careers and employability it is essential that you are aware of the contemporary issues in the sector, the problems and challenges professionals face and what that means for teamwork and employment. The module will draw upon sociological, psychological perspectives and theories of politics, social policy, and welfare and critically apply to the roles within the criminal justice system.