Applied Criminology with Criminal Investigation, BSc

The first time we will meet will be week commencing 14 September 2026 when you will be invited to join a week of Welcome Activities.

This helps you to settle into University and you will receive the key information you need to get started with your studies. You will get to meet staff and fellow students who will also help you to become acclimatised to campus areas that will be relevant to your time at CCCU.

You'll also learn a lot about the course and studying at CCCU, so please engage with as many of the activities as you can!

On completion of your Welcome Activities, you will be a fully-fledged member of the Applied Criminology community and from Monday 21 September 2026 the real work begins, as you start your first modules.

Students often have mixed feelings about starting University, and this is perfectly normal. Whilst there may be excitement for new experiences, there may also be understandable concerns and things you are uncertain about. If you have any concerns about starting university, please do not fret.

We know that choosing to embark on a degree course is a big commitment in time, energy and money and we assure you that we are fully committed to supporting you and helping you to reach your goals.

Your Course

The Applied Criminology with Criminal Investigation degree course aims to help you develop a solid foundation in core criminological theories, and provides many opportunities to apply these theories to current crime and social problems. 

The Level 4 (first academic year) is divided into two semesters. In each semester you will study three modules, as shown below:

Semester 1

• Succeeding in your Criminal Justice Specialism
• Criminal Justice and Accountability
• Student Success Modules (3 x 5 credit modules)

The Student Success modules are fully online. You can find out more information about the options available for you to choose from here.

Semester 2

• Becoming a Criminologist
• Investigative Interviewing

Student Support

Supporting students is at the heart of everything for the Criminology Team at CCCU. Please be assured that you will be fully supported to make sure that your transition to higher education is as smooth as possible and then throughout your studies. You will find the criminology staff friendly and readily available to support you.

You will also be allocated a personal tutor to provide you with academic and personal support and they will signpost you to other relevant departments for any additional help you may need.

Activities during Welcome Week will help to get you organised and settled in and these continue throughout the year. The key to enjoying and getting the most from university and your course is to be fully engaged with what is on offer right from the start.

Blackboard

All your learning materials, lecture slides, reading lists, and assignment briefs will be available on Blackboard, our virtual learning environment. You'll be able to access Blackboard when you have set up your computing account and you will receive an introduction to Blackboard during Welcome Week. Make sure you familiarize yourself with the platform early—it will be your primary resource throughout your studies.

To help you prepare

There's lots you can do to prepare for your studies in criminology. We recommend that you start regularly reading about crime issues in newspapers and online with a critical viewpoint. Look at a selection of newspapers, especially broadsheets, and see how the same event has been reported in different publications.

Ask yourself how the news media affect our views and opinions about crime. Also think about the types of crime that are not mentioned much in the news.

There are lots of government and charity websites that have information about crime and criminal justice. Look at the Ministry of Justice and Home Office websites to learn about government policies in relation to crime. You can also find up-to-date crime statistics there and the latest figures on the prison population.

Check out the websites of reputable charitable organisations, such as the Howard League for Penal Reform, the Prison Reform Trust, INQUEST, Victim Support and the Restorative Justice Council.

To help get you immersed in the world of criminal investigation, visit the College of Policing and Forensic Science Regulator websites.

Think about key questions such as:

• What is crime? Is this a useful concept or do we need to think more broadly in terms of harm rather than just the law?
• Do prisons work? Often this is a difficult question to answer as there are many things we ask prisons to do. What do you think these different things are and which are most important?
• Why do people commit crime? Is this due to individual reasons or are there social forces at play as well?
• How do we know how much crime is being committed? What difficulties might there be in measuring this?
• What do we most want from our criminal investigations? Should we find a culprit at all costs? Do we ever know if someone is guilty?

These are all areas we will be unpicking further with you during your studies - so it's good to start thinking about them before you come.

Given you have worked very hard to get into University, there is nothing compulsory you have to do before you join us.

We recommend that you use the summer to prepare yourself for your transition to higher education and take some time to relax and rejuvenate.

Also your preparation doesn't have to be solely academic. Crime is all around us in news and popular culture so look at those films, documentaries and crime novels but see them in a different way.

Start thinking about the ways in which these represent crime in particular ways, or how they focus on particular crimes. What do they say about the police, or prisons or the courts? This is all relevant to thinking critically about crime and criminal justice - which is the basic building block of criminology.

If you are keen to get started, we recommend the following 'light' reads. Staff have picked a broad selection so you can choose the areas that interest you most:

• David Simon: The Corner and Homicide (books) and The Wire (TV Series on DVD)
• Hallie Rubenhold: The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
• Truman Capote: In Cold Blood
• Phil Scraton: Hillsborough: The Truth
• Alexander Masters: Stuart: A Life Backwards
• Tim Pritchard: Street Boys
• Harriet Sergeant: Among the Hoods
• Steven King: The Green Mile
• James Ellroy: My Dark Places
• Anne Rule: The Stranger Beside Me
• Caitlin Davies: Bad Girls
• Green River Killer by Jeff Jensen and Jonathan Case

Watch lots of crime series on TV and read lots of crime novels!

These are an important part of how the public see and understand crime so it's also important we know about them! The TV Series Life on Mars, for example, is a brilliant insight into police culture and changes to policing since the 1970s.

There are also some great documentaries about miscarriages of justice at the moment. Learn more about the Cardiff Three case, for example, by watching A Killing in Tiger Bay on iplayer or listen to the podcast Shreds on BBC Sounds which covers the same case. Or there are Netflix documentaries like 13th, Amanda Knox or Athlete A.

If terrorism and state crime are more your thing you can watch things like November 13: Attack on Paris or Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror, both also Netflix.

Criminology is a really broad discipline and this is one of the things our staff love about it. So immerse yourself in books and series that make you think about what crime is, how we see it as a society and how we respond to it in terms of crimes and victims.

If you would like something more academic, choose any academic introductory criminology textbook that suits your learning style. Our first year students particularly like:

• Case, S., Johnson, P., Manlow, D., Smith, R., Williams, K. (2021) Criminology, 2nd Ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press (see on Amazon)
• Burke, R. (2018) An Introduction to Criminological Theory. Abingdon: Routledge (see on Amazon)
• Davies, M., Croall. & Tyrer, J. (2015) Criminal Justice. Harlow: Palgrave (see on Amazon)
• Newburn, T. (2017) Criminology. 3rd Ed. Abingdon: Routledge (see on Amazon)

A full book list, including recommended textbooks will be available when you start your course. You can also buy a special criminology bundle at a discounted price from our University Bookshop