This module will provide you with the necessary skills to begin studying at level 4 in courses related to law, policing and criminology. You will be introduced to the core skills necessary to succeed in higher education, including thinking critically, researching and referencing appropriately, demonstrating appropriate numeracy and ICT skills, and communicating effectively verbally and in writing. You'll also be introduced to specific concepts related to your degree programmes including an introduction to the English legal system, business law, criminal law and the criminal justice system and ethics. Real-world examples of the law in action will be highlighted, and you will practice applying the law to case studies. The module is made up of the following eight constituent elements: Interactive Learning Skills and Communication (ILSC); Information Communication Technology (ICT); Critical Thinking; Composition and Style; Ethics; Fundamentals of Law; Business Law; Criminal Law.
This module provides a comprehensive introduction to key social issues as they relate to crime and crime control. Throughout this module you will learn core sociological, criminological and psychological concepts and theories of crime and how they may be used to understand contemporary crime. To achieve this, module lectures have been designed to explain and explore key theoretical ideas in an accessible way. These ideas will be applied to contemporary criminological case studies during module seminars. Each week, following the lecture, you will complete structured tasks, supporting you to actively engage in your own learning and develop the skills needed to study at undergraduate level. This module will aim to build your academic skill set by supporting the development of your analytical and critical thinking skills. The module is designed to include practical study skills sessions that will support the development of your academic writing and communication skills. Throughout this module you will also be introduced to the importance of planning your employability journey and taking your first steps towards building a strong employability profile.
View the full module definitionCriminal Justice in England and Wales will introduce you to the criminal justice system in this country, taking you through the key elements of the justice system: Police, Courts, Prisons, Probation, and the Youth Justice System. Each week, you will be introduced to a different stage of the system and unpack some of the critical issues that are discussed in this area. For example you will learn about the role of police, and the benefits that a policing system provides, while also looking at the controversial aspects of policing, such as racism and the ongoing debate about how much force the police should use. You will also discuss the statement ‘prison works’ and examine the shifting landscape of the prison system in the context of overcrowding and privatization. During the research skills workshops, you will learn how to critically assess research on the criminal justice system, developing evaluation skills and knowledge of research methods in the process. You will learn how research is undertaken and have the chance to do this yourself in relation to issues of criminal justice, such as public attitudes to various elements of the criminal justice system. By the end of Criminal Justice in England and Wales, you will be able to demonstrate an appreciation of the complicated position of victims and offenders in England and Wales. You will be taught in weekly two hour lecture/workshops and one hour ‘research evaluation skills’ workshop. Your assessment will comprise a portfolio of work discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the criminal justice system.
View the full module definitionMedia representations of crime are a matter of public interest as well as political debate. The way the media treats crime has important implications for public perceptions of crime, criminals and the processes of the criminal justice system. Should crime always be newsworthy? How objective is the presentation of crime in the media? With the use of specific examples, you will examine key issues in traditional and new media, to provide you with an understanding of changing social norms and expectations in relation to crime and the media formats through which it is discussed and portrayed. You will explore the ways in which media shapes our perception of crime and critically examine the theoretical perspectives on media and propaganda. In addition, you will explore the construction of crime news and the role of politics and ideology in this context. You will explore the fictional and factual representation of youths and sex in the media; the fear of crime; contemporary surveillance culture; the analysis of relevant statistics, and the use of propaganda techniques. You will examine these issues through the use of case studies, reports, and theory. You will be expected to select one or more case studies in order to develop analytical skills as well as presentation skills during the seminars. The selected case study will build a foundation for the essay. In the essay you will develop techniques to evaluate debates about the relations between media, society and crime, as well as public perceptions.
View the full module definitionHistorical awareness guards against the impression that modern features of law-breaking, deviance, policing, or punishment are either entirely new, or remain relatively unchanged. In the Evolution of Crime and Criminology, you will trace and explore the origins of laws, as well as the construction of ‘crimes’, sanctions and control mechanisms that have emerged over time. In addition, you will consider the role that religion and the state have played in the shaping of society, tracing the origins and developments of the principal institutions of the criminal justice system and reformulations of criminal justice policy, which governments and societies re-shape regularly. You will evaluate the development of Criminology as a discipline and interrogate its foundational theories, their underlying philosophies, and how we can position and re-position the origins of crime and its control.
View the full module definitionViolence and Confrontation aims to guide you through the key thinking and theory behind some of the most pressing issues facing criminologists and wider society today. Each week, you will explore theory framed within case study, allowing you opportunities to consider media, policy, and criminal justice system responses to types of violence ranging from hate crime to homicide and terrorism. You will also be considering the construction of race, gender, and sexuality, getting to the core of social issues which might incite violence. This module seeks to build your critical thinking skills as well as your analytical ability, granting you opportunities to question and debate with your fellow students within seminars, as well as undertake active learning tasks. By the end of the module, you will be able to both apply theory and critique instances of violence through a new modern lens
View the full module definitionRevolving Doors: Punishment and Rehabilitation will introduce you to the key debates surrounding penology, prisons and alternatives to imprisonment. Each week, you will learn about a different issue relating to the justification of punishment, the prison system, rehabilitation, and alternatives, such as community service, probation and parole. You will examine different theories of justice that inform contested debates about issues such as culpability, sentence lengths and the penal environment. You will also hear about a range of contemporary issues affecting prisons, in particular the growing number of ageing prisoners, how mental health issues are dealt with, and the rise in prisoner violence and radicalisation. The module will enable you to be able to demonstrate knowledge of the theories underlying punishment, prisons and rehabilitation. It will be delivered in weekly one hour lectures and one hour seminars. The assessment will comprise an essay that gives you the opportunity to explore what an ‘effective’ sanction looks like, and a chance to review and appraise a current rehabilitative programme.
View the full module definitionThis module is designed to prepare you to take your interests and skills into the ‘real world’. You'll learn about different research approaches used in academic research as well as how research can be used to inform policy and interventions to make a difference in wider society. The initial focus will be on assessing how academic research is designed to investigate some of the most pressing issues in contemporary societies. In doing so, you'll be trained in how to select and use different types of research designs and methods to answer research questions. You'll then take the research knowledge and skills you have developed and apply them to a ‘real world’ scenario. In this part of the module, you'll work with an external organisation to investigate an ongoing issue, and in doing so you'll gain valuable experience working with professionals relevant to your degree. Having gained skills and experience in both academic and applied research, this module ultimately prepares you for your final year undergraduate major project (UMP) as well as providing you with key transferable skills to help you onto the career pathway of your choice.
Ruskin Modules are designed to prepare our students for a complex, challenging and changing future. These interdisciplinary modules provide the opportunity to further broaden your perspectives, develop your intellectual flexibility and creativity. You will work with others from different disciplines to enable you to reflect critically on the limitations of a single discipline to solve wider societal concerns. You will be supported to create meaningful connections across disciplines to apply new knowledge to tackle complex problems and key challenges. Ruskin Modules are designed to grow your confidence, seek and maximise opportunities to realise your potential to give you a distinctive edge and enhance your success in the workplace.
Lessons Learned: Inquests, Tribunals and Truth will introduce you to the notion that some of the important decisions and mindsets that govern our cultural and legal landscape can be based upon misunderstanding, prejudice, myths and lies, which remain concealed for many years. You will learn about key barriers to ‘justice’ and critically examine some controversial aspects of criminal justice system decision-making, and the media that represents it. You will draw upon a range of case studies to examine issues such as coroner’s inquests, serious case reviews, international criminal tribunals and ‘trial by media’. You will contrast decision-making from a position of power against the impact upon the disempowered; the contexts in which ‘cover-ups’ can be used to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence or other potentially embarrassing information through deception or ommission. In Lessons-Learned, you will examine cases through which narratives have been doctored, in order to pass blame and minimise the responsibility of institutions or individuals, including scapegoating, withholding information and whitewash. In addition, you will consider notions such as scandal, obstruction of justice, perjury and conspiracy; and their methods, such as denial, blame, intimidation and bribery. Finally, you will evaluate mechanisms that have been implemented to safeguard justice, and whether lessons are learned effectively from past mistakes. Whilst tying together the themes of the module, you will consider typologies of cover-ups, barriers to justice, and the mechanisms that can dually serve to protect those in power, whilst seriously damaging public confidence.
View the full module definitionCybercrimes are becoming increasingly prevalent in western society, and their policing and control progressively problematic. You will have the opportunity to explore the risks that modern cybercrimes pose to individuals, organisations and the nation state, and examine how authorities both locally and transnationally have attempted to police new digital patterns of criminality. The module is taught in two, discreet halves, with the first exploring the development of new ‘cyber-dependent’ crimes that exist solely as a product of new internet technologies. The second half will examine the emergence of ‘cyber-enabled crimes’ involving the reconstitution of established and traditional crimes such as human trafficking, organised crime, terrorism and hate crime that been irrevocably changed by virtue of their online ‘digitisation’. Within each of the topics covered in the module, you will have the chance to explore cutting edge cyber-crime case studies against a backdrop of the challenges that authorities have faced when attempting to police these crimes both locally and transnationally. In addition, you will examine the impact of the Dark Web and Tor Network, and how these continue to evade traditional policing styles. You will learn about the facilitation of radicalisation and terrorism, othering and stigmatisation, transnational crime, migration and human trafficking and the policing and security strategies that have been developed to combat and prevent them. You will examine the topics within online digital settings, which will provide you with insights that will deepen and complement other taught modules that adopt an ‘offline’ approach when investigating crime and policing. You will achieve an understanding of a wide range of cybercrimes, their sociological and criminological conceptualisation and the key modes of policing, punishment and control designed to reduce and contain their risk. The module is taught by lecture/seminar format using computer-based work for seminars.
View the full module definitionIn this module you will examine the interaction between health and society and, more specifically, the relationship between health and illness and social institutions. The vulnerabilities, strengths and differences between human bodies are not only experienced by all of us in our daily lives but are increasingly at the forefront of political and social media debate and controversy as well as the targets of national and international trade, aid and inequality. You will look at how disability and ideas of the “healthy body” relate to neoliberal notions of individual agency and personal responsibility, often serving to legitimise forms of social stigma, marginalisation and inequality. You will also examine the ways in which medicine has been racialised. You will be taught by lecture and interactive learning sessions, and you will be required to engage with written and visual sources and numeric datasets for learning on this module. Within this learning environment, you will assume collective responsibility for applying course material to a specific topic in order to generate sociological understandings of health and inequality. You will be encouraged to engage with some challenging themes, thus building on a set of adaptability skills that will also create opportunities to engage with the wider university structure, and thus develop social capital.
View the full module definitionIn this module you'll consider how spirituality and religion have diversified and changed in a globalised society, and explore changing patterns of belief, practice and association. You'll have the opportunity to investigate aspects of spirituality, such as mindfulness and meditation, and new personal rituals, such as fixing ‘love locks’ on Paris bridges, or setting up roadside memorials. You'll explore how traditional religions have adapted and changed in a more’ liquid’ society, for example, by going online; but also how some religious groups have reacted against globalisation. And you'll discover new secular forms of belief and practice and learn about the rise of people identifying as of ‘no religion’. You'll look at how sociologists have historically examined religious beliefs, practices, movements and institutions in order to understand more about the implications of these for individuals, societies and communities. But you'll also learn how as contemporary sociologists we can continue to explore and understand the cultural and political significance of religion and spirituality and their interaction with secular world-views within the context of globalisation. You'll have the opportunity to undertake structured skill development in presentation and debate, and in written analysis. These skills contribute to future employability skills and relate to other outcomes on your degree. This module is taught by interactive sessions and may include visits to places of spirituality and/or religion, such as mosques, churches and meditation centres.
View the full module definitionCrime has been a problem for authorities since the dawn of time; however, what constituted a ‘crime’ and how people thought that criminals should be prosecuted has been everchanging. In this interdisciplinary module, you'll consider the history of crime, policing and punishment from the 1600s to present day. Through a range of primary and secondary sources, you'll explore how ideas of crime and attitudes to offences such as murder, rioting and drug use has changed and evolved throughout the centuries. You'll learn about how past societies detected and tried to prevent crime, as well as punished criminals such as through imprisonment, hanging, whipping and transportation. Case studies including Jack the Ripper, the Bloody Code and knife crime of the modern era will be brought in from week to week so that we can explore continuities and changes in crime across history to the present day.
View the full module definitionIn this module you will develop an understanding of careers involving the application of core areas of linguistics to aspects of speech and language therapy, forensic linguistics and language technology. The module, which has been created with input from industry partners, will help you gain insight into how linguistics is used in clinical, legal and commercial settings. You will get a basic introduction to technical aspects of these professions as well as a more general awareness of the kinds of roles available in these sectors. You will develop an understanding of how linguistics can be applied to non-academic contexts in clinical, legal and commercial settings. You will investigate relevant job opportunities and prepare an application for one such position, highlighting how your degree prepares you for the role.
View the full module definitionViolence, Gender and Victimisation will take you on a deep dive into issues surrounding gender-based violence and harms. You will examine violence in the context of gender and wider societal responses, examining social norms, policy challenges and criminal justice responses. You will critically consider current and potential barriers and complexities in the response to gender-based violence and reflect on current policy guidance.
View the full module definitionThe Dark Web is often referred to as the ‘cybercrime capital of the internet’. This label accurately represents the role that the dark web plays within global networks of online child sexual exploitation, the transnational trade of illicit goods and online terrorism and radicalisation. Dark Web Policing and Control confronts such issues and seeks to critically evaluate the tactics and strategies that both UK and international law enforcement agencies have used to control the scale and spread of these offences. Dark Web Policing and Control begins by explaining the tools and technologies that underpin the dark web and how the dark web can be used and accessed safely. You will then explore each of the major crime types associated with the dark web and the key policing strategies used to control each. Across each of these themes, recent case studies will be used to illustrate how investigations unfolded, the digital evidence that was gathered and how law enforcement stakeholders collaborated to secure prosecutions. You will also examine how you may undertake social sciences research within the dark web and the digital methodologies that are required. The content offered is research led and informed by first-hand qualitative interviews with dark web investigators based within the UK.
View the full module definitionIntoxicants and intoxication will introduce you to the sociological analysis of the place of intoxicants, and the role of intoxication, and how this has changed over time. It incorporates a broad range of themes: production and distribution; regulation, control and the law; substance use, misuse and addiction; gender and intoxication; and socio-economic changes in the place of intoxicants in societies (e.g. work, time and alcohol use). You'll gain an understanding of the broad historical and cultural differences in the meanings ascribed to intoxicants and intoxication. You'll develop analytical skills in identifying how substances, who consumes them, and the place/time they are consumed change, and that they are shifting targets of problematisation in society. Substances you will study may include alcohol, cannabis, opiates, new psychoactive substances and MDMA. You'll gain an insight into how one phenomenon, that of intoxicants and intoxication, can act as an observational lens through which a wide range of sociological issues can be examined, including gender, age, social class, disorder, offending and regulation. Key transferrable skills for employability that you'll gain in this module include critical thinking, planning and organising, prioritising, initiative and resilience.
View the full module definitionIn this module you'll be introduced to the field of youth work, focusing on the principles and practices of safeguarding. You'll develop a sturdy foundation in essential concepts, ethical considerations, and practical strategies pertinent for engaging with young people across diverse settings. Recognised as a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) module, it offers comprehensive training, qualifications, skills, and knowledge essential for youth work and the safeguarding of children and young people. Whether you are new to working with young people or are seeking to deepen your understanding of youth work practice, this module serves as a catalyst for obtaining the qualifications vital for your professional development. CPD in youth work, coupled with a solid grounding in safeguarding principles, prove exceptionally beneficial if you choose to pursue a career in youth work, social work, probation, youth offending, and policing. This module will cover a spectrum of competencies essential for building positive relationships and for promoting your own social mobility.
View the full module definitionKnowledge of a foreign language can be a major asset both in your academic and professional life. The Anglia Language Programme offers you the opportunity to study a foreign language as part of your course.
The individual final Major Project module allows you to engage in a substantial piece of individual research, focused on a topic relevant to your specific discipline. Normally the topic will be agreed in consultation with academic staff and an appropriate supervisor will be appointed to supervise you in your chosen topic. The topic may also be drawn from a variety of sources including: Anglia Ruskin research groups, previous or current work experience, the company in which you are currently employed, or a professional subject of specific interest (if suitable supervision is available). The project topic will be assessed for suitability to ensure sufficient academic challenge and satisfactory supervision by an academic member of staff. The chosen topic will require you to identify and formulate problems and issues, conduct literature reviews, evaluate information, investigate and adopt suitable development methodologies, determine solutions, develop software and/or media artefacts as appropriate, process data, critically appraise and present your findings. Regular meetings with the project supervisor and or/group workshops should take place, so that the project is closely monitored and steered in the right direction. The assessment will normally include a substantial written report, including a bibliography.
View the full module definitionYouth, Crime and Aggression has been designed to allow you to build on your previous two years of work to think critically about the Youth Justice System and its place in the wider context of the criminal justice system. In this module, you will critically evaluate the youth justice system in England and Wales. You will identify areas of tensions and contradictions within the youth justice system. You will compare and contrast theories explaining youth crime and youth culture. You will also analyse competing strategies in youth justice and their outcomes, discussing recent developments in youth justice legislation, policy and practice, which will teach you to evaluate current practices in youth justice issues. Within this module, you will explore recent developments and key innovations in the youth justice system and their implications for the rights of young offenders and their victims. This module will run weekly two-hour lectures and a one-hour seminar. You are required to have a good understanding of criminological theories and their histories and be thoroughly prepared for weekly discussions by completing the essential reading ahead of lecture/seminar.
View the full module definitionThe objects of the criminological enquiry – crime, policing, justice, punishment, victims, order, and security - have come to occupy a prominent and disputed place in the lives and consciousness of citizens and governing authorities. Your career may be determined upon how well you understand the systems that you seek to work in. In this module, you'll explore the intersections of crime, criminology, and contemporary practice to better understand how key policies impact on perpetrators and victims of crime, as well as the broader society. You'll analyse and critique a range of relevant policies, placing them within a political, policing, economic and social context. You'll critically examine some of the tensions that exist within organisations, such as decision-making, agenda-setting and resource allocation. You'll think critically about the processes that are involved in turning ideas into action, building ‘joint working’ initiatives and managing policy implementation. Furthermore, you'll apply some of the wider criminological and policing issues you've studied in relation to the criminal justice work setting - how do cultural, political, and patriarchal and policing attitudes affect the shape of agenda-setting, and what could be the impact of vicarious trauma upon the agents in whom we put so much trust? This module will provide you with the skills necessary to connect your degree with the criminal justice sector, its policies and practices.
View the full module definitionThe exploitation of humans in order to force them to engage in activities against their will is a poorly understood, yet prevalent practice. Human trafficking, exploitation, sexual violence and slavery are multi-faceted and global; they can affect anyone regardless of age, socio-economic background, ethnicity, gender or location. Exploitation can take many forms, and any given situation can involve various stages of development. Through the coercive nature of these types of abuse, victims cannot consent, yet they are frequently depicted as culpable for the abuse they have been subjected to. In Exploitation, Trafficking and Sexual Violence, you will examine the tensions that exist between the ’recruitment’ or ’grooming’ of potential victims through force, fraud, coercion, enticement, deception, blackmail or other non-consensual acts. Rather than considering each constituent separately you will seek to draw comparisons and contrasts between them, such as power-imbalances, gendered violent stereotypes and dehumanisation. The exploitation of humans will be considered from a political, policing, social and media perspective in order to juxtapose the precarious nature of the disempowered, who are often at the mercy of the powerful. Finally, you will evaluate policies and support mechanisms that have been implemented to protect victims, who may face long-lasting and devastating consequences. Whilst tying together the themes of the module, you will consider barriers to justice alongside the growing body of evidence that calls for action to recognise all forms of endemic and pervasive violence as political.
View the full module definitionIn this module you'll gain an in-depth exploration of the sociology of race, racism and ethnicity. We'll consider three related themes: the social origins and significance of racial and ethnic divisions; the (varied) causes, contexts, and consequences of racism and antiracism; and the cultural dynamics of migration and globalisation. To do this, you will keep returning to three key concepts: racialisation (the social and political construction of racial difference), racism (the ways in which race structures social relationships), and identity (people's understanding of similarity, difference and belonging). We'll develop each theme using a combination of theory and research-based case study material. You'll apply these to consideration of examples and evidence drawn from contemporary society, politics, and policymaking. Although the primary focus of the module will be on contemporary Britain, we'll also draw insights from historical and international comparisons.
View the full module definitionThe psychological study of crime, criminals and victims within an investigative framework is known as criminal or investigative psychology. In this module, you will examine the role that psychology and psychological perspectives can play in the criminal justice process. You will pay particular attention to the application of psychology to police investigations including the collection, examination and utilisation of investigative information and evidence as well as to the role of the psychologist in the court room. You will explore the different ways criminal psychologists contribute to police training, investigations and interviewing as well as their contribution to understanding evidence in the courtroom and how juries process that evidence. In addition, you will examine and evaluate the challenges and pitfalls that can arise when advising on police investigations. You will be required to contribute each week primarily through the completion of practical tasks and exercises. These exercises will utilise real case studies, designed to familiarise students with the types of criminal cases and associated outputs produced by criminal psychologists in a 'real world' setting.
View the full module definitionGlobal Feminisms will introduce you to the plurality and diversity of feminist thoughts and debates, practices and activism(s). The heterogeneity of feminist action and strategies on a range of issues will be emphasised to enable learning on historic and contemporary feminist movements. An intersectional approach will be adopted to highlight how feminists have engaged with anti-race politics alongside challenging norms around gender and sexuality. You'll be exposed to feminist knowledges and scholarship on issues viz. women’s political participation, gender-based violence, trans identities and rights, sex work, etc., as well as learn about different forms and strategies of feminist activism. You'll also learn about feminist research methodologies and epistemological approaches to understand what it means to ‘see’, ‘think’ and ‘do’ sociology using a feminist approach. Teaching will comprise a combination of lectures and seminars and will involve guest speakers who are feminist activists and scholars across diverse contexts nationally and internationally, facilitating connections with a global network of academics and practitioners in the study of the sociology of gender. You'll be able to connect theory and practice through ‘real-world’ applications of feminist knowledges and pedagogies, including a feminist manifesto and critical case study of a feminist global campaign. Through this, you'll develop communication skills, computer literacy, creativity, critical thinking, decision marking, planning and organisation, problem-solving, project and time management, and research skills. Specifically, you'll learn to evaluate feminist campaigns, strategies and policies which you can draw on to enhance employability in the statutory and voluntary sector, among others.
View the full module definitionNew media, and particularly online social media, have become a fixture in today’s socio-political context. The ubiquity of online social media like Twitter and Facebook, among other platforms, have given them not only a social dimension but also one that facilitates political activism, exchange and perhaps control. On this module, you will explore the role of social media in political practices, and the production of political knowledge as well as power. You will be introduced to the many facets of social media in political theory and practice, before considering real world impact areas of social media today in a range of issue areas. You will focus on how social media impacts on activism and protest, and political campaigning, but will also explore the darker side of social media freedom. The module is structured in two parts, beginning with an engagement of theoretical aspects relevant to politics and social media. In this part you will explore and contrast the virtual with the real, examining how they relate to one another in current socio-political contexts. The second part engages with concrete cases in which social media have played an active role for social and political impact. As part of the module, you will be encouraged to participate actively with social media on a political topic of your choice, assessing the value and role of the online social media platform. You will be taught through lectures and seminars.
View the full module definitionWhat role, if any, does the concept of evil play in our moral vocabulary? Is it a narrowly theological notion or does it usefully describe certain kinds of act and/or character? On this module, you'll examine contemporary accounts of evil, as well as looking at the concept of evil in the history of philosophy from Leibniz to the present. In addition to considering theoretical discussions of evil, you'll also consider phenomena such as war and terrorism and ask whether the concept of evil helps us to understand them. You’ll be taught by lecture and seminar, and expected to undertake self-managed learning.
View the full module definitionOrganised Crime begins with a discussion of the UN 2030 sustainability goals and you will identify policies and practices, justifying why they have to be challenged in these uncertain times. You must be prepared to research and discuss controversial cases relating to organised crime and the far-reaching, and often hidden impact that they can have on society, the economy and policing jurisdictions. You will consider the nature and shape of criminal networks, and the potential immunity that power and influence can wield. You will critically evaluate the potential exploitative opportunities that are available to criminal networks, focusing on particular selected recent examples of white collar crimes, environmental crimes and corporate crimes each week. For the assignment, you will select a relevant theme and explore it within a variety of social, political, media, legal and cultural contexts. You will test your adaptability skills by facilitating discussion of organised crimes from a range of social contexts; and cultivate an understanding of a variety of ‘voices of authority’.
View the full module definitionOn this module, you'll explore the range of discursive practices used to explain sex and sexuality in Western culture. You'll examine long-standing claims about the 'naturalness' of heterosexuality as a reproductive drive linked to the survival and reproduction of the human 'species', and the implications of this for the gendered sexual order, various non-conventional sexualities and particular social groups. Drawing on a 'social constructionist' approach, you'll examine religious, biological, psychological and sociological explanations of sexuality. You'll uncover how sex and sexuality are understood, practised and regulated, and in doing so, expose the ideological and discursive foundations of ideas about sex and sexuality in relation to gender, ethnicity, age and disability. You’ll look at how ideas about sex and sexuality are shaped historically, how they vary cross-culturally and how they impact on us as individuals and members of particular social groups.
View the full module definitionPerceptions of rising extremism and growing insecurity have increased the opportunities for tighter and arguably more invidious forms of social control in western societies in the rhetorical 'war on terror'. On this module you will identify and critically examine terror-related issues through criminal justice, criminological and legal perspectives. You will investigate the shift from 'old' terrorism to 'new' terrorism, and apply a range of theoretical perspectives to selected cases of 21st century domestic and international terrorism. You will contrast various typologies of terrorist, such as the 'home-grown', the 'lone-wolf', religious extremist, animal rights activist or neo-Nazi, and consider the various types of media coverage that each category attracts. Counter-terrorist measures will be evaluated in relation to a number of factors, such as prejudice, propaganda, nationalism, xenophobia and religion. You will critically evaluate concepts such as universal human rights, freedom of speech, radicalisation, axis of evil and war on terror, and apply them to examples of strategies that have been utilised and justified in the international 'war against terror'. You will attend a one hour lecture and one hour seminar each week for the whole trimester.
View the full module definitionComparative and Global Criminal Justice will introduce you to the profound economic, political, social and technological developments in the world since the late 1980s. These developments fuelled by globalisation have had huge implications for international criminal justice. You will examine the constant tension between the local and international notions of justice that these social changes have created. You will also critically analyse the ways comparative criminal justice researchers are studying international crimes and global justice issues such as genocide, gender-based violence, terrorism, human trafficking, capital punishment, and child labour. Importantly, you will develop skills necessary to analyse effectively criminal justice issues from a global perspective and be exposed to global institutions and organisation at the forefront of global justice issues. You will attend a one hour lecture and a one hour seminar each week, and be prepared for weekly discussions on key global justice issues.
View the full module definitionThe Anglia Language Programme module will allow you to study a foreign language as part of your course. You may choose to take two language modules in place of options on your course from the second semester of your first year, or in the second or third year. You can choose from the following: Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Italian, Japanese, or Spanish. In order to experience the learning of a new language, you must select one that you have not learned before.
In this module you'll gain an understanding of how to use quantitative data and advanced statistical methods to explain and predict crime as well as profile offenders and victims. It is an intensive training module which focuses on the development of applied analytical skills. You'll become familiar with using the Crime Survey for England and Wales and other high-quality data sources to explore and model public attitudes towards crime, as well as using official statistics to estimate ‘what works’ when trialling interventions in the criminal justice system. You'll also spend time looking at the emerging field of ‘digital methods’ and how knowledge of this approach is crucial for tracking and identifying potential criminals. Given the statistical nature of the module, this module is only suitable for students who achieved a grade C or above in GCSE Maths (or equivalent) who are also comfortable with basic statistical concepts such as measures of central tendency (mean, mode, and median).
View the full module definition