Criminology with Social Policy BA (Hons)

This module provides a comprehensive introduction to classical and contemporary sociological theory. Tracing sociological analysis from its origins in the nineteenth century through to major present-day thinkers, the module addresses some of the discipline’s landmark studies and theories, in the process equipping you with understanding of the major frameworks for thinking sociologically.

‘Studying Society’ is designed to provide students with a comprehensive introduction to the field of social enquiry. What is ‘the social’? Why would we study it? What would that involve? These are questions with which this module is concerned. It offers an introduction to the proper objects of social enquiry, relevant modes of thinking and questioning, strategies for finding, accessing, and evaluating sources of information, methods and techniques for generating and analysing data, as well as skills in communicating information and ideas effectively. In doing so, the module aims to equip students with a range of skills for the study of society at degree level and beyond. The module provides students with opportunities to both study and practice these skills.

This module examines continuity and change in social, cultural, political and economic life in Britain over the twentieth and into the twenty-first century, particularly in the period after 1945. The module will examine areas of British life like politics, the economy, the family, social and cultural relations, and the role of social policy in responding to and encouraging wider forms of change.

This module examines some of the main social changes that have taken place in British society since 1945. It draws upon sociological studies to discuss the inter-relationship between ‘race’, ethnicity, class and gender to understand the influence of these on society.

This module introduces you to the subject matter of sociological criminology. It provides an essential foundation for your studies in criminology at Liverpool. You will acquire an understanding of key issues and debates in the sociology of ‘crime’ and subject contemporary talk about ‘the crime problem’ to critical analysis.

This module provides a critical introduction to the criminal justice system. With SOCI107, it provides an essential foundation for your studies in criminology at Liverpool. Key criminal justice concepts, institutions- including the police, the courts, prisons – and processes are introduced and their roles and functions are subject to critical appraisal.

This module offers you the opportunity to explore how criminology has developed various perspectives throughout its historical and socio-political development. The key concepts devised and utilised by criminologists are also explored for their impacts upon criminal and social justice. The module is concerned with major controversies within criminological thinking and criminal justice practice.

This module examines how quantitative data can be used to investigate the social world. It considers how such data is gathered, the increasing prevalance of ‘statistics’ in making claims about the nature of social reality, how to go about assessing the accuracy of these claims, and how to practically analyse quantitative data to gain a better understanding of society.

This module is designed to provide students with an introduction to the theory and practice of social research using qualitative methods. The module covers qualitative research principles and design, ethics and reflexivity, data generation, data analysis, and presentation of findings. The module encourages students to develop both a critical understanding of and practical competencies in qualitative social research.

This module provides an introduction to the sociology of policing and the police. Using a range of approaches to teaching, learning and assessment this module will equip you with knowledge and skills which will enable you to consider key issues in contemporary policing from an informed and critical perspective. Upon completing the module you should have a solid understanding of key concepts used to understand policing and the police from a sociological perspective, and you should be able to apply these concepts to a range of policing topics.​ 

The module is underpinned by three core aims. First to provide a broad overview of the historical, theoretical and political foundations of punishment, penality and prisons internationally but in the UK in particular. Second to examine the experiences and outcomes of imprisonment for identifiable groups of prisoners including: Children and young people; women; black and minoritised people; older people, LGBTQAI+. Third, to introduce a range of key debates and controversies surrounding the questions of punishment, penality and prisons in ‘modern’ societies and to subject them to social scientific interrogation and critical analysis.

This module is concerned with studying the origins and development of the concept of Social Exclusion. Students will explore and evaluate its theory and practice and will consider a number of case studies around class, ‘race’ and ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and gender. You will evaluate policy responses and social action to counter social exclusion; discuss the relationship between exclusion and other forms of social stratification and consider a number of theoretical perspectives that utilise inclusion/exclusion concepts.

Based on Esping-Andersen’s classic analysis of the ‘three worlds of welfare capitalism’, this module provides a framework for comparing welfare states, i.e. ‘the mixed economy of welfare’ in different ‘welfare regimes’: including the ‘liberal’ regime in America, the ‘conservative’ regime in Germany and the ‘social democratic’ regime in Sweden. It examines the ways in which these different regimes emerged historically, how they organise and deliver welfare, the social, political and economic priorities they embody, the outcomes they have for different social groups, including their role in the production of inequalities, and their prospects for the future.

The module gives you the opportunity to engage in either an applied social research project or a distinct work project in collaboration with a local Voluntary Community Organisation (VCO).This is organised through the charity ‘Interchange’, based in the SLSJ.

Running across two semesters, the dissertation is a major part of the final year of study and completes their “apprenticeship” in social science. It allows students to revisit, consolidate and apply what they have learnt in the course of their degree studies by focusing in on an independent research project of their own choosing and which they must systematically complete and present as an original social science dissertation. 

This module offers an alternative approach to the traditional dissertation also offered to third year students and to the Interchange modules.

Students will be given the opportunity to work cross-faculty with engineering students on MECH327.

It will draw upon on the same skills and will test the same outcomes: subject knowledge in sociology, social policy, or criminology or interdisciplinarity as relevant to the chosen topic; desk top research skills; analytic skills and awareness of the limitations of knowledge; and presentation of findings.

Students will be guided through the research process by a supervisor who will have nominated a topic to investigate prior to each academic year (related to supervisors’ areas of specialism). This module will assist students who are unsure of a research topic themselves but wish to develop key transferable skills for employability purposes and provides the opportunity to work closely with an academic expert and fellow students working on similar topics.

The assessment is based on a portfolio comprising different elements. Students will be expected to evidence collaborative working in sharing resources, giving and receiving feedback, and critically reflecting on their delivery and/or preparations for delivery.

The module is an ‘alternative dissertation’ in that it requires group discussion, presentation of findings through a visual or other creative medium and will culminate in a portfolio of 8,000-10,000 words inclusive of appendices.

​The module gives you the opportunity to engage in an in-depth investigation of benefiit to a local Voluntary Community Organsiation (VCO). This module may involve use of anonymised secondary data analysis, or literature review , or policy analysis, and does not involve the collection of new data. The enegagment with the VCO is organised through the charity Interchange, based in the SLSJ.

​The module gives you the opportunity to engage in an in-depth investigation of benefiit to a local Voluntary Community Organsiation (VCO). This module may involve use of anonymised secondary data analysis, or literature review , or policy analysis, and does not involve the collection of new data. The enegagment with the VCO is organised through the charity Interchange, based in the SLSJ.

The aims of this module are to develop a broad range of sociological understandings of issues relevant to health, illness and the life course. This will involve critically examining new developments in theoretical and methodological approaches as well as a variety of empirical studies on the social and cultural aspects of health, illness and the lifecourse.

This module explores issues concerning the gendered nature of work related to deviance. It considers arguments concerning women’s relation to deviance, explores the links between masculinities and crime, studies the experiences of female offenders and explores experiences of women as victims of crime. Teaching is based on current research and practice in this key area of policy.

This module introduces students to key issues in contemporary feminist theory. Centering on the controversies and debates surrounding gender and identity the course examines the ways in which feminist theorists have developed, contested and expanded the concept of gender. To do so the module explores a wide range of contemporary issues on the body and power.

This module examines the place of risk in the modern world. Students will be invited to explore the social impacts of various security risks and to examine the ways in which individuals produce, consume and manage risks in everyday life.

This module explores the phenomenon of corporate crime in historical and contemporary contexts. It does so by exploring the ways in which the law acts as a key source of the power to commit corporate crimes that victimise workers, consumers, communities and the eco-system. This course will explore the development of the corporation as a key institution in capitalist societies and the ways in which the law supports the corporation and can provide a structure of impunity for corporate crimes.

The module is underpinned by four core aims. First, to explore criminological and sociological conceptualisations of ‘youth’, ‘crime’ and ‘criminalisation’, and to engage with criminological theories of youth crime and youth justice. Second, to investigate cultural approaches to youth crime and violence, and the role of youth culture and subculture in understanding crime and transgression. Third, to analyse the control of, and responses to, youth crime by institutions and state agencies, and the management of youth crime and the regulation and governance of young people. Fourth, to look at the experiences of practitioners working in areas such as youth crime prevention, youth welfare, and the youth criminal justice system.

The overall aim of this module is to explore how particular ways of doing ethnography help us to analyse politics, policy, government and the state as social phenomena. Rather than provide a single ‘tool kit’, the lectures will highlight the diversity of ethnographic techniques and analytical practices that researchers actually employ. Based on this, and along with the small-scale exercise in observational resarch, the module provides ideas about how we might pursue politics and political actors through society for ourselves and in a variety of ways.

This module considers the links between the rise of urban forms of living, economic change, and the place of ‘culture’ within society. It asks questions such as why cities are at the heart of cultural development, why culture is seen by some as having a role to play in dealing with urban social problems, how the nature of cultural expression changes as dominant economic forms change, whether cultural and economic values are really opposed, what the role of culture is in a ‘new economy’, and how governments seek to intervene in this area.

Panopticon and the People examines how contemporary issues in criminology and criminal justice policy, including offending and the life course, persistence and desistance, race, gender, violence, youth crime, and gang crime, have been treated historically from the eighteenth century to the present.
Students will utilise online data archives and data visualisation techniques to interrogate criminological concepts including Michel Foucault’s disciplinary gaze and Stanley Cohen’s moral panic. Students will gain knowledge of historical methods and debates and gain transferrable digital skills.
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​ This module provides an introduction to the study of desistance from crime with a particular focus on critical approaches and new developments in the field. Using a range of teaching, learning and assessment methods this module will equip students with knowledge and skills which will enable the consideration of key issues in desistance research and the impact on policy and practice from an informed and critical perspective. The aim will be to challenge the more traditional theory, research, policy and practice in this area and examine new and emergent areas of study that advocate for an approach that looks beyond the criminal justice system for reducing re-offending. Upon completing the module, students should have a solid understanding of desistance theory, new empirical developments, the role of punishment and resettlement in desistance from crime, issues around gender and the ability to critically interpret desistance research and the impact it has had on both policy and practice.  

​ The course investigates the different ways in which gender is incorporated into national welfare states and the impact of national structures on the patterns and prevalence’s of gender inequalities. The course covers the theory and methodology of comparative studies and their applicability to the analysis of gender, especially how well existing typologies of welfare states fare when gender is the focus of analysis. A number of key patterns of inequality and policy areas will be studied and we will look at the political economy of neoliberalisation and austerity and its effect on gendered welfare state provision. By looking at these aspects of welfare states students will been encouraged to contrast approaches of different welfare systems and consider the particularism of national approaches.

This module focuses on social class. It takes ‘class’ as a conceptual term and unpacks its meaning, and material reality in society. Students are introduced to a range of classical and contemporary class theory, where they will critically consider historical debates in class-based analysis, and how these are connected to wider changes in political, economic, social, and cultural realms. Students will also analyse class manifestations in a range of sites such as, education, (social) media, sport and leisure, fashion, work, and, health.

This module looks at the impact of colonialism on patterns of migration to Britain in the post war period. It examines the changing nature of racism as an ideology by exploring and contextualising scientific and institutional forms of racisms. You will look at the conflictual relationship between the state and minority ethnic communities through an examination of various struggles including anti-immigration ones. The module will also seek to unpack constructions of ethnic and national identity in the context of post-colonial Britain

​ Photographyis becoming increasingly popular amongst the social sciences. Although somedisciplines like Anthropology and Geography have long made use of photographyas an integral part of the research process, others like Sociology andCriminology are relatively new to the method. In this module students willexamine how photography, particularly documentary photography, has been and canbe used to understand, analyse, illustrate and communicate the social world. Bylooking at work by both practitioners and scholars, as well as various theoriessurrounding the photograph, students will develop a visual literacy andmethodology to include within their research and practice repertoire. ​

​ This module looks at the sociology of death and spirituality. In the first part of the module, rather than seeing death as simply a biological process, we unpack the various social processes and forces that influence how we see, understand, experience and cope with death. In the second part, we look at how groups and individuals engage with, imagine and construct relationships with spirits. From conversations with the dead in spiritualist churches, to faith healing, to Chinese spirit mediums and Hungry Ghosts, students will take a global perspective on the socio-spiritual world.

This module examines how ‘communities’ and members of the general public interact with and are ‘involved’ in crime control and criminal justice institutions. You will explore how the lay public are involved, who is involved and the effects of public involvement in different settings. The module is taught via lectures, seminars and independent study.

This module is based around a comprehensive introduction to social studies of architecture, and focuses on analysis of the architectural spaces of parliaments, prisons, and courts. Introducing sociological frameworks for understanding the relationship between states, architecture and power, the module addresses these three types of political architecture, including as they are put to practical use.

This module seeks to enable students to develop a deeper critical understanding of societal issues concerning illegal drugs and crime, and to appraise how policy and practice have developed to try to alleviate them. Students will look at how issues of drug use, supply and associated criminal behaviour are socially constructed. Through these understandings, students will develop their own knowledge as to how policy responses to such ‘problems’ are interpreted and translated into practice. Students will be encouraged to consider how some people’s drug use is disproportionately framed as problematic, with reference to age, gender and class, as well as consider the spatial distribution of drug-related crime, violence, harm and links to wider social-structural processes. Due attention will be given to a range of criminological and multi-disciplinary perspectives in this module.

Culture, or the ‘symbolic environment’ in and through which individuals and groups make sense of their being, their actions, and the social and material world, shapes our understandings of crime and its control. Definitions and meanings of crime and transgression are constantly negotiated, and contested, in everyday life, global politics and media. In this module, students will engage with the interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological approaches of cultural criminology. Students will explore how transgression and control are intertwined with various cultural phenomena and processes of meaning-making in order to develop an understanding of crime as a culturally mediated concept. Module topics include (virtual) subcultures, media representation in a multi-mediated age, consumerism, cultural and political resistance, green cultural criminology and feminist cultural criminology.

Taking the UK context as its focus this module explores ways to think critically about the role of military institutions and estates, and their associated values, identities and practices, as they are found influencing and impacting upon everyday public life.

This module aims to critically explore the concept of the ‘sex industry’ and will examine policy, policing of sex work, stigma, and the global sex worker rights movement.

This module seeks to enable students with a deeper critical understanding of societal issues concerning alcohol and crime, and to appraise how social policy has been developed to try to alleviate them. Students will look at how issues of alcohol consumption and associated criminal behaviour are socially constructed. Through these understandings, students will develop their own knowledge as to how policy responses to such ‘problems’ are interpreted and translated into practice. Students will be encouraged to consider how some people’s drinking is disproportionately framed as problematic, with reference to age, gender and class, as well as consider the spatial distribution of alcohol-related crime/violence/harm and links to wider social-structural processes. Due attention will be given to a range of criminological and multi-disciplinary perspectives in the lectures.

The problem of crime has been seen as a major issue of concern to the media, politicians and policy-makers over the last thirty years. This module critically examines responses to ‘crime’ and, more recently, ‘disorder’ in Britain over this period, and examines the ways in which these responses have impacted upon different sections of society. The module provides an introduction to the relationship between crime and community as this has been developed within the discipline of criminology in Western societies.

This module looks at how criminology has tried to understand the effects on crime and criminal justice of climate change and other processes of social change associated environmental insecurity. The module will provide a comprehensive introduction to, and look in detail at, crimes which harm the environment, and which can be committed, organized or coordinated across national borders, involving groups or networks of individuals working in or than one country. The module will also explore the global effort to prevent such crimes, together with the challenges of applying ordinary instruments of criminal justice to environmental matters. Here, specific examples will include: Illegal logging and deforestation, illegal undeclared and unregulated fishing or depletion of fish species which are endangered; illegal dumping of toxic waste, especially in the developing countries; Illegal Transboundary waste shipment; Toxic waste and pollution; Money laundering and transfer of the proceeds of environmental crimes; poaching and trade in wildlife species and wildlife parts, criminological environmental theories; UN Conventions, protocols and offices related to the environment, among other things.