Criminology is one of the newest academic disciplines, and has grown for good reason. Its popularity ensures that students are turning to it in 16 numbers, both in Britain and in North America.
All advanced Western societies have now developed research and teaching programs in criminology. Increasingly during the twentieth century, governments have realized that they need criminologists to advise on trends in crime rates, changes in prison policy, the training of magistrates, changes in approaches to policing, the wisdom of current economic policies and their knock-on effects on crime patterns.
Not only that, but a public which is bombarded daily with crime news, stories, thrillers, crime-watch projects, and dramas, factual or fictional, wants to know the truth: what causes crime? Who commits crime? Does prison work? Do the police over-step the mark? Should we have capital punishment? In addition, when you add on a whole range of professionals 'in the
business' of criminal justice - police, social workers, probation officers, prison officers and politicians - who want to put their work into a bigger perspective, you will realize why criminology has become a boom industry. Today, numerous universities in the UK run undergraduate degrees in criminology. The latest addition to this list is the BA in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of East London's School of Law.
Courses offered range from foundational units such as Socio-Legal Methods and Skills, Constitutional Law, Criminal Justice Process, and Contemporary Issues in Criminology, to specialist substantive units such as Theoretical Process, Contemporary Issues in Criminology, Theoretical Criminology, Crime and the Media, Youth Justice, Crime and the City and Crime, Deviance and Culture.
A number of features are unique about this degree:
- It combines explanatory criminology, focussed on the causes of crime, with criminal justice studies of the operations of the legal systems
- Many of the optional units are contemporary in content and broad in range
- There is a strong overlap with the School's other main research strength in international legal studies, which produces an unusual but important focus on international aspects of crime and human rights
- The degree is taught in a really multicultural academic environment, with an awareness of the cultural character of definitions of crime and justice throughout the world
These new criminology degrees at undergraduate level deserve to succeed in a field that can still offer jobs to students. Crime is always with us in highly modernized countries, creating a need for educated police, journalists, politicians, social workers, prison officers and probation officers. Increasingly, they realize that they need to know the results of the sciences available, which means criminology and criminal justice studies.
Professor Colin
Sumner University of East London School of Law
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