The first time we will meet will be week commencing 16th September 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 as well as finding your way around campus through a treasure hunt. 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 23rd September 2024, the real work begins, as you start your first 3 modules… How exciting!

Students often have mixed feelings about starting University, and this is perfectly normal. Whilst there may be excitement for new experiences, there are understandable also 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… So enjoy and embrace your future. We will be with you all the way!

If you're keen to start hearing about things going on at the University you can follow our Faculty Instagram or the Student Union on twitter @christchurchsu. 

 

The Applied Criminology 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. We also offer you opportunities to study related subjects such as Law, Criminal Psychology and Policing.

The course has been designed using the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) benchmarks for criminology degree courses, ensuring that your course provides you opportunities to develop the knowledge and skills valued by criminal justice and related employers. Your compulsory modules each year are taken by all students on your course. These aim to give you a good grounding in the key knowledge and theory that helps you to specialise in your optional modules.

All the modules in our first year are core, but you will also be able to shape your degree by choosing optional modules that interest you in years 2 and 3. These include areas like media and crime, mental health and violence, youth crime and justice and punishment and the prison.

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

Semester 1

• Crime: Representations and Realities
• Crimes, Punishments and Societies
• Introducing Crime, Offences and Justice

Semester 2

• Transnational Crime and Global Markets
• Crime: Narratives and Explanations
• Introducing Psychology and Crime

Supporting students is at the heart of everything we do in the criminology course 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 the Applied Criminology course is to be fully engaged with what is on offer right from the start. 

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.

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 our their social forces at play as well?
• How do we know how much crime is being committed? What difficulties might there be in measuring this?

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.

Your welcome and induction will be w/c 16th September 2024 - we look forward to meeting you then.

 

Community

On the social side, the Student Union (CCSU) has a huge range of clubs and societies – all of which have unique social calendars of their own and offer endless opportunities to make lifelong friends and discover new hobbies. And you can always create your own society and cultivate your own community!

CCSU will be hosting their Welcome Fayre on Wednesday 18th September 2024. Make sure you keep checking the CCSU website for further details and how to get involved.

We understand that you may be nervous about your first few weeks on campus but rest assured - you'll be joining a nurturing and supportive environment where diversity, equality and individuality are part of everything we do.

You can find out more about our welcoming community and making friends 

If you are an International Student joining us then please see our International Student Support pages for further information and guidance.

 

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

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 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