MSc — 2025 entry Criminology (Corporate Crime and Corporate Responsibility)

Crime is not a fixed object and definitions of crime and criminal behaviour change across time and space. So do the ways in which societies respond to it. This module will introduce students to the major theoretical perspectives that have been developed within criminology to conceptualise 'crime', 'criminals' and 'criminality', starting with 18th century classical theories all the way to contemporary reflections on the impact of neoliberalism on penalty. Armed with this knowledge, students will develop a critical awareness of how criminological theories contribute to shaping and generating ideas and responses to crime and deviance. Students will also explore how specific theoretical perspectives can help us to address criminal justice problems such as punishment, incarceration and social control. In so doing, students will gain a deeper understanding of the interplay between theory and practice and how the two can inform and influence one another.    

Quantitative data analysis is one of the key methodological approaches available to social researchers, enabling them to identify and explain important patterns in the social structure of society.   In this module, students will learn how quantitative research approaches can be used to describe and explore the social world. Students will learn how to ask questions with quantitative data, will be introduced to the fundamental statistical principles required for making robust and generalisable claims, and will consider theoretical, methodological, and practical issues which have an impact on quantitative research design. Students will also learn how to collect and analyse quantitative data, covering issues of sampling and descriptive statistics, as well as being introduced to general regression approaches.   Emphasis throughout the module will be on intuitive understanding and practical considerations, rather than rigorous derivation, and on hands-on practical experience with R, the world’s leading statistical software package.

The course evaluates and discusses the way environmental and social concerns have affected organisations in the private sector, and how such organisations have affected the content, shape and direction of the public debate. Particular emphasis will be paid to corporate sustainability strategies, the distribution and organisation of roles within an organisation, the contribution of different departments, as well as the industrial perspective towards industrial ecology and sustainable consumption.

Qualitative research approaches remain one of the fundamental ways for researchers to access the insights, understandings, and experiences of social groups, as well as to explore their social interactions. This highly practical module provides students with a systematic methodological basis for conducting various forms of qualitative analysis and the opportunity to gain practical experience. The main techniques covered are observation and interviewing, although the module also explores documentary and visual approaches. Observational fieldnotes, interview transcripts, and visual images are collected, analyzed and reported throughout the course of the module. In addition to learning core qualitative research skills the students gain experience of developing a small scale research project and present their findings in a professional way. These skills will equip students to undertake their dissertation research and research projects in their future career.

This module offers an introduction to the criminal justice systems in England and Wales. It looks at the various agencies involved in criminal justice, how they evolved and how they interact with each other and with offenders and victims. Theoretical conceptualisations of the criminal justice process are outlined. Relevant policy and legal interventions are also assessed.

This module focuses on the nature and extent of crime and offending.  It examines the different approaches to measuring crime and offending (police recorded crime, victim surveys, ‘known’ offending and self report studies).  It considers the main factors associated with crime and offending and highlights the importance of understanding the nature and patterns of crime in planning strategies and interventions. Within the topic, we cover issues including the digital capacities of control, particularly associated with the role of technology in offending and crime prevention. These analyses are further situated in international contexts from global and cultural capabilities perspectives, especially in encouraging thinking outside of Anglo-centric contexts. Practice examples are offered throughout the module, to understand ways of working with offenders and in response to offending in accordance with employability, as well as ways of utilizing resources to support offenders from a resourcefulness and resilience perspective.

This module explores how law and social control relate to the institutional and interactional orders of developed Western societies having Common Law jurisdictions. In so doing it examines how individuals and groups seek to influence the behaviours of others and are also subject to regulatory forces that shape their own conduct. It considers the ways that these processes can give rise to crime and social deviance and pre-figure the efforts of agents of social control. Students are encouraged to critically engage with the concept of social control and to reflect on how it illuminates contemporary sociality and our present normative apparatus.   Within the topic, we cover issues including the digital capacities of control, particularly associated with the role of technology in social control. These analyses are further situated in international contexts from global and cultural capabilities perspectives, especially in encouraging thinking outside of Anglo-centric contexts. Practice examples are offered throughout the module, to engage in assessing reactions to crime and social control technologies, utilizing resources to support offenders and victims from a resourcefulness and resilience perspective.  

The criminal justice process has often been charged with an over focus upon ‘working class’ crimes such as burglary or street robbery. As a result, it has been argued that many more serious crimes effected by more powerful or collective agents like corporations have been overlooked or policed less effectively. For example, environmental damage, financial misconduct, or illicit trading. In this module the nature of criminality effected by the corporate and business worlds and the kinds of measures intended to make corporations more responsible’ will be examined in detail. We consider how agents like corporations can be constructed as criminal actors, both conceptually and legally, the typical kinds of offences they are implicated in and what kinds of responses from the criminal justice system would be most appropriate in dealing with this. A series of case studies across a representative selection of corporate sectors will be used the structure and direct the module content.

The dissertation is an extended piece of writing (10,000-15,000 words) which allows the student to work on a topic independently in depth, with appropriate guidance from a supervisor. It enables students to use the social research methodologies developed during the taught programme to explore a criminological or sociological topic of particular interest and to synthesise the skills and knowledge which they have acquired.