Criminology

How do we understand crime? How can it be prevented? Why should crime be punished, and how should we go about it? Criminologists engage with some of the most pressing issues, decisions and dilemmas facing societies today. On our course you explore the nature of crime, criminal justice and punishment within wider social contexts.

Criminology at Essex builds on strong sociological foundations and reflects the diversity of staff interests, including leading contributors to studies of women, young people and criminal justice, prostitution, homicide, victimisation, visual criminology and media, organised crime and law enforcement, terrorism and surveillance, environmental crime and more. Our courses provide critical, conceptual and theoretical analyses of crimes and harms, from the local to the global.

The course provides you with a strong grounding in the key theories, understandings and issues covered by cutting-edge criminology. You explore a wide range of topics, including:

- The analysis, politics and prevention of crime

- Globalisation and various forms of crime

- Security and the state

- New criminological theory

- Terrorism, counter-terrorism, surveillance and human rights

You also develop the skills needed to make your own contribution to the field, gaining a critical and coherent perspective on empirical research and examining the key assumptions and ideological underpinnings of qualitative and quantitative research.