Course summary

This is a Connected Degree Portsmouth is the only University in the UK with the flexibility to choose when to do an optional paid placement or self-employed year. Either take a placement in your third year, or finish your studies first and complete a placement in your fourth year. You can decide if and when to take a placement after you've started your course. Overview Why do people commit crimes? And what should we do about it? From offender to victim, punishment to rehabilitation, this BSc (Hons) Criminology degree asks questions about the causes and consequences of crime. The answers may surprise you. They’ll certainly help you choose the right career path. As you become an expert on the criminal justice system in England and Wales, you’ll develop skills for a range of careers – from policing and prisons, to probation and rehabilitation, as well as roles fighting fraud in the private sector or influencing Government policy. And because crime doesn’t respect borders, this course also gives you a uniquely international perspective. Course highlights

• Explore the latest national and international debates and research in topics as varied as hate crime, state crime, terrorism, gang crime and victimology

• Get career-ready with an emphasis on skills and employability, including volunteering opportunities with organisations such as Hampshire Constabulary and local charities like Aurora New Dawn (supporting victims of crime) and Read and Grow Society (helping ex-offenders learn to read)

• Learn from an international team whose experience spans law and criminal justice, policing, probation and more – including a former private detective doing important research into missing persons and an expert in European responses to domestic violence

• Join lively debates in one of the country’s largest criminology departments and contribute your own ideas on how we should respond to crime as a society

• Build a professional network by meeting practitioners from criminal justice agencies, businesses and charities

• Customise your degree to match your ambitions: some modules reduce the amount to time you’d need to train for a policing career or as a probation officer ​

• community safety

• crime prevention

• fraud investigation

• youth offending teams

• counter fraud roles in banking, the NHS or the DWP

• economic crime investigation

• policy analysis and formulation for councils or the Government

• community rehabilitation

• postgraduate study and research

• Hampshire Constabulary, Avon and Somerset Constabulary, Metropolitan Police, Thames Valley Police, South Wales Police, Kent Police

• National Probation Service

• G4S

• Financial service companies

• investigative data analyst

• police officer

• probation service officer

• youth offending support officer

• offender case administrator

• detective

• personnel security analyst

• private investigator

• witness service team leader