Course summary

Important notice – campus change This course will move to the Belfast campus. Students will change campus part way through this course. Our Social Policy with Criminology degree course focuses on key contemporary social policy issues and problems facing modern society. The course critically analyses how (and why) social policies are formed and implemented in the UK, and international social policy analysis considers the EU and beyond. A strong research methods component runs throughout the first two years of the course, as do historical and contemporary perspectives of underpinning theories and concepts, equipping the student to enable a synthesis of knowledge and understanding to inform the final year specialist modules. The major social policy component is two-thirds of the course with the criminological component occupying one-third. We maintain a strong focus on employability, practical social research skills, and a range of soft skills and transferable skills, necessary for employment in a range of jobs in the public, private and voluntary sectors. The BSc Hons Social Policy with Criminology degree programme provides a special opportunity to engage with social policy and criminology issues in Northern Ireland, particularly in the light of UK devolution developments and their social, political and economic implications. The major component of the course focuses on contemporary problems of poverty, inequality, discrimination, social welfare, service provision and social justice; and critically analyses social policy responses with a view to developing better mechanisms for addressing these problems. Criminology, as the minor one-third of your degree, will introduce a range of ideas, theories and mainstream concepts of criminology and criminal justice, for example, crime and deviance, victims, sentencing, punishment, policing, terrorism, surveillance, and emergent ideas on state crime. These, coupled with knowledge of legal institutions and structures, will provide you with a wider understanding of criminology and criminal justice systems. Students will study 6 modules each year: 4 modules at each level in Social Policy, the major subject; and 2 modules at each level in Criminology, the minor subject. The Criminology modules at each level are: Year 1 - Introduction to Crime & Deviance; Crime and Criminal Justice Year 2 - Chooses two of: Sentencing and Punishment; Young People, Crime and Justice; Policing and Society; State Crime; Public and Community Security; Policing and the Law. Year 3 – Choose two of: Crime, Social Order and Social Control; Surveillance and the Law; Prisons, Punishment and Power; Crime and the Media; Terrorism and Political Violence; Psychology and Crime; Cybercrime.