Criminology and Politics (with Professional Placement Year)

We're fascinated by crime. Turn on the television or search for something online and you'll soon encounter images, reports and programmes about crime, justice and punishment. Crime saturates media and popular culture, suggesting both our enduring fascination with wrongdoing and its consequences, and crime's status as an ongoing social problem.

But, what's the story behind these representations of crime? Criminology explores the causes, motivations and patterns of criminal conduct. In addition to improving our knowledge and understanding of crime, Criminology also informs policies and practices in policing, law, criminal justice and punishment.

With our Criminology degree, you'll study crime from a variety of approaches, gain practical and relevant experience, and develop a range of transferable skills that you can take into a range of careers and employment sectors.

Our innovative Politics degree has been designed to enable you to acquire specialised subject knowledge while developing practical and professional skills that you can apply to contemporary challenges, issues and debates.

What do people really mean when they say they’re not 'interested in politics'? Political action or inaction shapes our lives every day, in ways which are often invisible, or which seem remote or impenetrable. We know that it matters, but we can also feel removed from it: the vast sums of money spent on elections and then nothing seems to change, the narrowness of so much debate and the pointlessness of point scoring, getting power in order to keep it.

We want to try to get under the surface of all these assumptions and ask if it really has to be this way. We want to try to understand the politics of everyday life, as well as the major challenges of climate change, poverty and inequality, the imbalances of wealth and power nationally and internationally, and between elected governments and unelected corporations. Who decides: the local councillor, the member of parliament, or the chairman of the board?

More about the Professional Placement Year A Professional Placement Year (PPY), traditionally known as a sandwich year, is where you undertake a period of work with an external organisation for between 9-13 months. The placement occurs between your second and final years of undergraduate study. You can engage in multiple placements to make up the total time and are required to source the placement(s) yourself, with support from the Careers team.