Explore key issues and ‘real world’ problems in criminal justice and crime control in an increasingly globalising world. Using a range of up-to-date research and contemporary concerns about criminal justice and crime control in comparative or global contexts, you will engage with debates, discussion and policy in criminological thought and practice.

Learn about the vital skills of doing research in criminology and criminal justice, concentrating on the different types and rationales of a variety of research methodologies. You will be taught by a combination of lectures and tutorials.

What fascinates you? You will make an original contribution to research by designing, carrying out and writing up a project on a topic of your choice, supported by your dissertation supervisor.

Gain a broad and critical overview of systems of slavery and unfree practices historically and across a multitude of contexts. Familiarise yourself with complex theoretical debates on analytical categories such as ‘slavery’, ‘forced labour’, ‘debt bondage’ and how these related to the lived experiences of people across socio-historical contexts. You'll examine a range of cross-disciplinary academic literature and research, including in history, anthropology, sociology, politics, criminology and law. Past and current research at the Wilberforce Institute will contribute to developing a critical and multi-layered understanding of concepts, ideas and public discourses and how these have been moulded and shifted across time.

‘Crime’ is increasingly seen as a global rather than local or national problem. How do we ‘police’ such problems across borders and how do police agencies co-operate to tackle problems like cybercrime or cross border criminal activity? This module will explore models of policing, transnational policing and private security policing as well as debating and exploring the techniques, ethics and accountability of the police in such settings.

Explore contemporary global issues in gender, sexualities and crime, including domestic violence, sex work, discussions of masculinities, ethnicities and crime, sexualities and perceptions of deviance as well as exploring race, ethnicity and social justice within a gendered and international perspective.

On this module, you will examine and scrutinise a broad range of texts that address incarceration. This may include poetry by African political prisoners, Orange is the New Black (TV), artwork from Guantanamo Bay, Caribbean memorials to slave rebellions, Native American captivity stories, modern slavery documentaries and photography documenting Northern Ireland.

Carcerality and confinement critically explores immigration control through a criminological and sociological lens, looking at its stated aims, its workings in practice and ultimately its role as a site and frontier of incarceration and confinement. Exploring its history and its origins, it examines the factors underpinning patterns of criminalisation and control. Collectively, the lectures enable students to explore the manner in which incarceration and confinement is mediated by immigration status, and as such, the module develops and is at the forefront of contemporary theoretical and criminological analysis. At the same time, the module encourages students to develop strategies of reform, activism and social change.      

This module explores the experience of the transition from prison to the community. In doing so, this module identifies and examines the often-challenging nature of the rehabilitation and reintegration process for people in the criminal justice system. It will consider relevant legislation, theoretical debate and the precariousness of life during and after prison.