Course Essentials
Welcome to MSc Criminology and Criminal Psychology! We are looking forward to welcoming you into our criminology and psychology family, where you will meet other like-minded students, supportive and friendly staff, and a set of research active academics who will guide you through this engaging masters programme.
Your Course Team
Your Teaching Timetable
Teaching for your course will begin w.c 21 September 2026.
To help you plan your first few weeks, you can view an overview of the teaching activities for your course.
View your first trimester teaching timetable.
On a mobile device, click the arrow next to “Search” at the top right of the page to view your timetable.
If your course is taught in groups, the overview will show activities for all groups. You will only need to attend sessions for your allocated group.
Once teaching begins, your individual timetable and group allocation will be available in MyTimetable provided you have completed online registration and created your computing account.
| Your Trimester 1 Modules |
| Human Rights: Philosophical Debates |
| Conceptualising Criminal Justice |
Key dates
Academic Calendar: Trimesters [15 Week]
View key dates for this Academic Calendar for 2026-27 including when teaching starts and finishes and when you break for holidays.
Welcome
We are very much looking forward to meeting and working with you on our MSc Criminology and Criminal Psychology.
Key to your success is making a good start. We therefore urge you to arrive in time to fully participate in all the welcome activities in the week commencing Monday 14th September 2026– this is equally important whether you are joining us from a CCCU undergraduate degree or joining from elsewhere.
The following activities will be covered:
- Introduction to the MSc Criminology and Criminal Psychology teaching team and course content
- An introductory session to our library sources;
- Training in CCCU’s Virtual Learning Environment (Blackboard)
Getting started
Course Structure
The academic year will be split into three trimesters and you will complete the following modules:
Trimester 1
- Human Rights: Philosophical Debates
- Conceptualising Criminal Justice
Trimester 2
- Criminal Psychology in Context
- Research Methodologies and Analysis
- Challenge Module
Trimester 3
- Research for Policy and Practice
- Criminology and Criminal Psychology Major Project
Teaching on Your Course
Your teaching will be in-person, supported by our virtual learning environment, Blackboard.
You will mainly be taught in a workshop format, which will include lecture elements and plenty of class discussion. You will be introduced to Blackboard, your assessments and module expectations, including your guided and independent learning, in the first weeks.
You will find that preparing for workshops is critical to your learning, so always ensure that you are up to date and never hesitate to ask your lecturer for support, or clarification, if you need it.
Support is also available to you via our Learning Skills Hub, which includes many useful self-complete mini-modules, which we highly recommend you complete during your first trimester.
Your Must Do Tasks
Once you have been invited to register for your course, there are some key tasks you'll need to complete to make sure you are ready to become a CCCU student.
Registration invitations are sent towards the end of August. We'll send yours to the email address you used when you applied, so please check this inbox regularly to make sure you don't miss any important information.
Pre-course reading
To familiarise yourselves with the relevant subject areas, we would recommend the following books to read before you start the course:
Davies, P. and Rowe, M., 2021. An Introduction to criminology. Sage.
Canter, D.E., 2017. Criminal psychology. Hodder Education Group.
Campbell, T. 2010. Justice. 3rd Ed. Palgrave: New York.
Clapham, A., 2015. Human rights: A very short introduction. OUP Oxford.
Clark, T., Foster, L., Bryman, A. and Sloan, L., (2021). Bryman's social research methods. Oxford University Press.
International student success programme
International students: don't miss out! Make sure you register for our international student success programme which provides practical advice on preparing to live and study in the UK.
Contact details
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