Overview
Criminology is a fast moving constantly evolving subject which reflects the current social, and political climate. You are provided with opportunities and the resources necessary for you to develop an understanding of how the law is used as a tool to marginalise and criminalise some communities and individuals, while ignoring the crimes of the rich and powerful.
Studying criminology at Brunel means you are taught by academic staff who are actively engaged in criminological research further enriching the substantial and supportive learning resources on offer to you.
The criminology department at Brunel recognises and emphasises the importance of theory that is based on evidence and encourages you to engage in critical evaluation of concepts of crime and deviance. This critical approach nurtures lively debate, and we encourage you to develop independent opinions based on a wide range of theoretical and methodological perspectives, employing both quantitative and qualitative data in considering the processes of criminalisation and victimisation over space and time.
As critical criminologists, you will be encouraged to engage in debates about race, gender, migration, social harms, green criminology and a wide variety of other current topics. Whilst being furnished with the necessary research training in both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis to engage with and challenge debates as they evolve.
The programme sets out from a broad multi-disciplinary Social Sciences content at FHEQ Level 4 where you will be studying alongside sociology students in some modules as well as on criminology specific modules and then to a more focussed disciplinary content at FHEQ Level 5, and more specific thematic content at FHEQ Level 6, where students are encouraged to personalize their studies through their choice of a range of advanced optional modular blocks.
Course content
Criminology at Brunel takes a critical approach that is reflected in the range of subjects that seek to challenge notions of crime and deviance through a number of intersecting lenses such as gender, migration, sexuality, race, ethnicity and urbanisation. Brunel offers a wide range of contemporary subjects such as cybercrime, crimes of the powerful, gangs and social harms. These supplement more established criminology debates such as the part played by the media in shaping notions of criminality and the demonization and moral panics that are attached to youth.
We recognise the importance of theory and practical application of theory and with that aim we prepare our students with the tools needed to carry out vigorous research and the opportunity to take up placements with a number of organisations. The vitality of criminology at Brunel is designed to instil students with the knowledge and study skills required for post graduate study should they chose or a wide variety of career options.
Compulsory
- Introduction to Criminology
A critical introduction to what is understood by ‘crime’ and ‘criminology’. This will involve thinking about the different social, legal, and cultural understandings of crime and social harm, as well as the origins and the history of the discipline of criminology.
- Case Studies in Criminology
Students will explore a range of different case studies to enable you to understand the complexities of criminal behaviour, criminal justice responses, and their social and political contexts. Case studies will include high profile crimes and/or offenders, criminal investigation and prosecution, miscarriages of justice, protest and resistance, and high-profile investigations into the work/conduct of criminal justice agencies.
- Understanding Crime and Punishment
In addition to providing an overview of traditional criminological theories about why and how crime occurs, the module also explores why and how we control and punish. The module will explore changing models of punishment, surveillance, and control. In doing so, the module will explore different forms of punishment, the rationales behind them, and how they may be experienced differently.
- Crime, Media and Society
Students will be introduced to the critical role of the media in the criminalisation and marginalisation of some communities. Representations of crime and deviance will be considered through the prism of various forms of media such as television, social media, music, gaming, news, and the image.
- Institutions of the Criminal Justice System
Students will develop an understanding of the structure and history of the main institutions of the criminal justice system. We will explore debates and controversies related to the CJS and to assess them in relation to their impact upon marginalised communities using a variety of lenses, including but not limited to ethnicity, race, gender, migration status, economic status, and class.
- Global London
This module enables students to better understand their lived social environment, by focusing on the concept of ‘Global London' through multiple approaches derived from the Department of Social and Political Sciences. Topics include migration, security, urban development, crime, and the politics of public space.
Compulsory
- Global and Intersectional Criminology
This module will enable students to use intersectional perspectives to develop their understandings of crime, deviance, victimisation, social harm, and justice in a global context. The module will explore contemporary criminological theories and debates, with a particular concern for those from the Global South and/or relating to wider global contexts.
- Researching Your World
This module provides an advanced understanding of research methodologies, with a particular focus on data analysis. Equipping students with an understanding and appreciation of the important theoretical paradigms that underpin qualitative and quantitative social and communications research traditions. Furnishing students with the tools and skills required to conduct and evaluate their own empirical social and communications research.
- Crime and Deviance in Society
An introduction to notions of deviance in terms of othering, stigma, and criminalisation. It will consider the changing nature of deviance, how perceptions of deviance change over time, and how these perceptions impact on individuals and communities. Deviance will be studied through a number of different lenses that consider deviance as a part of a process of oppression but also a source of resistance.
Optional
- Youth Crime and Youth Justice
This module will consider the history of youth crime and youth justice. It will furnish students with a sociological and criminological understanding of contemporary issues relating to youth crime, providing both a practical and critical understanding of young people's involvement in crime and deviance and the various responses to youth crime by the criminal justice system.
- Gangs, Street Culture and Crime
Students will be introduced to the history and the various theoretical debates surrounding the nature of street gangs and street cultural formation. Using a wide range of criminological and empirical research, the causes of gangs and street culture, and the responses to this global phenomenon will be considered.
- Mental Health and Offending
An introduction to the key theoretical perspectives surrounding mental health and offending, it ensures students are familiar with the key legislation, policy, and practice in this area. This will enable students to critically question the relationship between mental health and offending, and support them to critically evaluate the key debates and controversies in the field.
- Victims: Crime, Social Harm and Justice
The module will introduce students to criminal justice policies and practices that relate to victims and enable them to think critically about who we consider to be a victim. Students will also be introduced to the field of victimology and explore the how victims are characterised, their experiences of the criminal justice system, and broader societal responses to victimisation.
- Colonialism, Migration and Global Racism
This module explores the concept, meaning and practices of ‘race’, ethnicity, racialization, and global racisms. It identifies how ‘race’ and racism have evolved over time, and in different contexts - both nationally in the contemporary UK as well as in other parts of the world.
- Global Communication
Examine the ways in which the globalisation of communication has transformed social, political, and economic relations. The following themes will be addressed in this module: the state, economy, power, globalisation, nationalism, identity, digitisation, culture and consumerism, media markets, public relations and politics, and political economy of communication.
- Making the Social
An introduction to core concepts in social theory. The emphasis is on concepts through which students can relate to the worlds they inhabit and the lives they live, connecting these to a broad canvas: the diversity of social existence and the sweep of human history. The focus is on basic building blocks of social existence.
- National Security Intelligence
This module furnishes students with an overview to the field of national security intelligence. It also examines in greater detail intelligence collection, analysis, counterintelligence, covert action, and other selected topics.
- Themes in Psychological and Psychiatric Anthropology
Learn about the development of psychological and psychiatric anthropology including theories of emotion, psychoanalytic approaches, folk psychologies, culture and personality, mental health and cultural perspectives on 'madness'.
- Digital Culture
This module considers the shape of new media technologies such as iPhones – it explores how new developments in media technology have changed the basis of contemporary social life and culture. This module will examine some of the key transformations that are taking place through digital culture.
- War and Humanitarianism
This module aims to provide students with a critical understanding of the main themes in the anthropology of war and humanitarian assistance. These include the anthropology of violence, how societies respond in the aftermath of violence, the origins of humanitarianism, the concept of emergency, refugees and Giorgio Agamben’s concept of ‘bare life’.
Compulsory
- Criminology Dissertation
An independent piece of research, which may be empirical, policy-based, or theoretical. Students will be allocated a supervisor and also provided with a series of workshops and drop-in sessions to help support the independent and specialised study.
- Criminology in Practice
Develop wider employability skills and understanding of professional practice related to a degree in criminology. Students will also be introduced to a number of areas of employment related to criminal justice practice to encourage them to think about their future career pathways and professional development.
Optional
- Drugs, Crime and Criminal Justice
Examine historical and current debates concerning the criminalisation of a variety of drugs. This will introduce students to debates about the impact of the criminalisation of drugs on marginalised communities. Students will be introduced to debates about global drug markets and the changing nature of those markets over time.
- Capitalism and Sex
This module will examine the relationship between capitalism and sex through a number of theoretical lenses which explore how sex intersects with the generation of profit. Using both historical and post-modern examples students will be encouraged to engage critically with debates around traditional and postmodern forms of sex work and the impacts of feminism on those debates.
- Psychosocial Perspectives on Crime and Violence
An interdisciplinary module which explores the psychosocial underpinnings of crime and violence in the contemporary world. It offers students the opportunity to move beyond common sense understandings of crime and criminal justice to consider the interconnected psychic, social and cultural processes involved in the development of criminal social identities.
- Home, Housing and Social Harm
This module introduces students to a number of questions concerning notions of home and housing in contemporary society, and how sociologists and criminologists should confront these issues as they occupy a central place in political, public, and mediated debates. It explores sociological and criminological debates around housing and the home, looking at the relationship between self, society, and state.
- Criminal Law in Context
Equipping students with a critical understanding of the socio-legal context of key aspects of the criminal law in England and Wales. These include violent and sexual offences, homicide, drugs and healthcare choices, public safety, property and security and disorder.
- Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism
This module aims to address a series of empirical questions regarding the causes, conduct, and consequences of campaigns of terrorism in the modern world. It provides students with an understanding of a series of key debates in the social science literature.
- Long Walk to Freedom: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid in South Africa
Encouraging students to consider the extent to which the current situation in South Africa is a product of the colonial era, postcolonial circumstance, or Africa’s deeper past. It will familiarise students with the main developments in Africanist and South Africanist historiography and encourage students to study South African history from both an Afro-centric and European perspective.
- Cities, Power and Social Change
An introduction to urban sociology and will develop the students understanding of urban development, cultures, and representation. The course will offer theoretical tools and provide practical applications for the relationship between space, culture, and social life in contemporary cities.
- Lawyers, Guns and Money: Making the Modern World-System
This module will explore issues raised by historical and political sociology regarding the development of the modern world-system. In particular the course will focus upon the rise to dominance of Europe in the building of the modern world-system and the explanations offered for this.
- Apocalypse! Crisis and Society
Explore the social & political significance of representations of national and global crises, and public perceptions of controversies. Students analyse dystopian popular and scientific discourses that dwell on disorder and catastrophe. Indicative content includes risk, uncertainty, globalisation, the environment, disease, capitalism. Public understanding, perception and engagement with popular and scientific controversies and notions of crisis.
- Global Migration
Equips students with an understanding of the key concepts in global migration including the causes and consequences of migration, national and international responses to migration and the diversity of migrant flows within a global context, using cases from both Global North and Global South contexts.
- Themes in Psychological and Psychiatric Anthropology
Learn about the development of psychological and psychiatric anthropology including theories of emotion, psychoanalytic approaches, folk psychologies, culture and personality, mental health and cultural perspectives on 'madness'.
- Environmental Justice
The module introduces students to diverse notions and theories of social justice, and to the emergence and development of environmental justice movements. It enables students to explore how environmental justice claims are made in relation to substantive issues at different scales of analysis.
- War and Humanitarianism
This module aims to provide students with a critical understanding of the main themes in the anthropology of war and humanitarian assistance. These include the anthropology of violence, how societies respond in the aftermath of violence, the origins of humanitarianism, the concept of emergency, refugees and Giorgio Agamben’s concept of ‘bare life’.
This course can be studied undefined undefined, starting in undefined.
This course has a placement option. Find out more about work placements available.
Please note that all modules are subject to change.
Read more about the structure of undergraduate degrees at Brunel.
Careers and your future
Students can expect to have an array of employment opportunities across the public, private and voluntary sectors. This might be in different sectors of the criminal justice system, such as prisons and probation services. But it might also be in a number of related services such as drug and alcohol support services, youth services, victim support services (increasingly in areas of child protection, internet safety, prevention of radicalisation and extremism), as well as other third sector organisations and community-based services. Critical criminology is an excellent grounding for students who are thinking of a later conversion course that allows them to practice law. It also provides them with the critical thinking skills sought by third-sector organisations that challenge issues of human rights violations in areas such as migration, incarceration, and protest both in the UK and internationally
As criminology graduates, they will also have career opportunities in different policing roles: in a range of police services, border security, the National Crime Agency, and numerous others including the private sector security services. Criminology graduates will also have opportunities for further study at the postgraduate level in related disciplines at Brunel as well as in other HE institutions.
UK entry requirements
2024/25 entry
- GCE A-level ABB-BBC.
- BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma DMM.
- BTEC Level 3 Diploma DM with an A-level at grade B.
- BTEC Level 3 Subsidiary Diploma Merit with A-levels grade BB.
- International Baccalaureate Diploma 29 points. GCSE English equivalent Standard Level 5 or Higher Level 4 and Mathematics Standard Level 4 or Higher Level 4
- Obtain a minimum of 112 UCAS tariff points in the Access to HE Diploma .
- T levels : Merit overall
A minimum of five GCSEs are required, including GCSE Mathematics grade C or grade 4 and GCSE English Language grade C or grade 4 or GCSE English Literature grade B or grade 5.
Brunel University London is committed to raising the aspirations of our applicants and students. We will fully review your UCAS application and, where we’re able to offer a place, this will be personalised to you based on your application and education journey.
Please check our Admissions pages for more information on other factors we use to assess applicants as well as our full GCSE requirements and accepted equivalencies in place of GCSEs.
EU and International entry requirements
You can find out more about the qualifications we accept on our English Language Requirements page.
Should you wish to take a pre-sessional English course to improve your English prior to starting your degree course, you must sit the test at an approved SELT provider for the same reason. We offer our own BrunELT English test and have pre-sessional English language courses for students who do not meet requirements or who wish to improve their English. You can find out more information on English courses and test options through our Brunel Language Centre.
Please check our Admissions pages for more information on other factors we use to assess applicants. This information is for guidance only and each application is assessed on a case-by-case basis. Entry requirements are subject to review, and may change.
Fees and funding
2024/25 entry
UK
£9,250 full-time
£1,385 placement year
International
£19,430 full-time
£1,385 placement year
Fees quoted are per year and may be subject to an annual increase. Home undergraduate student fees are regulated and are currently capped at £9,250 per year; any changes will be subject to changes in government policy. International fees will increase annually, by no more than 5% or RPI (Retail Price Index), whichever is the greater.
More information on any additional course-related costs.
See our fees and funding page for full details of undergraduate scholarships available to Brunel applicants.
Please refer to the scholarships pages to view discounts available to eligible EU undergraduate applicants.
Teaching and learning
We recognise the importance of being taught by tutors engaged in research, and the curriculum adopts a variety of methods that reflects the expertise of individual lecturers. We believe that learning is a social activity – students are encouraged to share knowledge, discuss ideas, and aid each other in their intellectual development. We view learning as interactive and co-constructive and situate teaching as a guided conversation rather than a simple instruction to students. Teaching and learning will normally take place in a variety of contexts and may include the following formats:
- Lectures
- Tutorials
- Seminars
- External visits to places of relevance to modules
- Whole group interactive sessions
- Working in groups
- Weekly Journal Entries
- Comparative Analyses
- Group critiques
- Group and individual learning
- Tutor-led, participant-led, self-directed, research and study
- Use of subject-specific and generic technologies
- Resource-based learning, including library work, internet research.
Assessment and feedback
Assessments will be varied but always relevant to the nature of the activity/enquiry being carried out and to the expected outcome – which may involve presentation of research, written essay, portfolio work and group participation. Assessment will be through a variety of means to evaluate different skill sets:
- Coursework essays
- Individual and Group projects
- Portfolios
- Work diaries
- Reports
- Case Studies
- Critical Reviews
Students’ knowledge and understanding of learning outcomes will be studied via a range of assessment practices. This mix simultaneously will enforce a broad and comprehensive coverage of the Programme themes and the more selective, creative and skills-oriented form of understanding that will come from particular blocks. Knowledge and understanding of practice-based, research-oriented outcome will be assessed by means of reports of skill-oriented work (as with research methods) at FHEQ Level 4 and 5, and the final year dissertation at FHEQ Level