Course Overview
Criminology is one of the most diverse, stimulating and challenging subjects offered at university. It draws on several academic disciplines - psychology, sociology, social policy, law and even biology - to investigate some of the most pressing social problems of our time: what are the causes of crime and what should we do about it? Why are some forms of misconduct defined as crime and others not? How best can we support victims of crime?
Key features
- Swansea Criminology ranked 1st in the UK (The Guardian University Guide 2017)
- All criminology undergraduates at Swansea are members of a thriving and multicultural academic community where the interests of students (both pastoral and academic) are given the highest priority.
- All teaching is conducted within a relaxed and supportive environment with a clear emphasis on the skills necessary to succeed in the world of employment.
- Criminology students are offered the opportunity to acquire knowledge and understanding across a range of key criminological and criminal justice topics.
- There is also an emphasis on providing personal development opportunities for students across the programme, including group working, formal presentations and seminar discussions, which develop skills such as team working, peer learning, formalized presentation abilities, report writing, independent research, critical evaluation and use of ICT.
Course description
The Department of Criminology offers its students the opportunity to acquire knowledge and understanding across a range of key criminological and criminal justice topics. To keep pace with and reflect such a developing and ever-changing area of policy and thought, degree scheme content is kept under regular review; last year, for example, we introduced a new module for our third year students, Serious Crime & Social Harm, which considers issues such as terrorism and human trafficking.
With student employability in mind, we have also introduced a Careers-focused module at level one, Careers for Criminologists, and have developed a work placements scheme involving a range of different agencies (e.g. courts; police; youth justice teams) for students at the end of level two.
