Overview

Crime and justice are fundamental elements of our social lives. They fascinate the public imagination and pervade political debates, but they are also complex and contested concepts.

Our MSc in Crime, Justice and Society takes a multidisciplinary approach to explore these concepts and their relationship to the social world. Grounded on a multifaceted understanding of justice and informed by criminology, sociology and cognate disciplines (e.g. political science, international relations, philosophy), it will explore the complexities of justice and crime as social phenomena.

You will uncover the ways they both include and extend well beyond the notion of individual law-breaking. You will also apply your knowledge to examine contemporary controversies relating to justice and crime, using research evidence and theoretical concepts to consider their real-world implications and even solutions!

This masters level course is not only designed to enhance your intellectual understanding of society, justice and crime, but seeks to equip you for professional level career paths in the state, private and ‘third’ sectors thanks to innovative modules and a dissertation that allows you to specialise in a subject of your choice under individual supervision.

Why study MSc Crime, Justice & Society?

This innovative course takes a holistic view to understand the complexities and controversies associated with crime and justice in contemporary society. Through a focus on the key theoretical and empirical dimensions that are central to understanding the societal nature of justice and crime, you will consider justice, and injustice, in their varying manifestations (e.g. criminal, social, political, environmental) and the inter-relations between these. You’ll develop and apply your ‘sociological imagination’ to understand these phenomena in terms of historically contingent social structures that implicate social axes such as class, ‘race’, ethnicity, sexuality and gender. Over the course you’ll develop knowledge enabling you to understand how crime exists across a range of dimensions (social, economic, political etc.), implicating different ‘actors’ from individuals and organisations to institutions and states.

Your future career

The multidisciplinary nature of the MSc in Crime, Justice and Society will facilitate the command of the conceptual, theoretical and empirical dimensions of this fascinating degree, thus providing you with a broad informed knowledge base. The breadth of assessment methods on the course have been specifically selected to maximise your transferable skill. This combination of substantive course specific knowledge and transferable skills will notably enhance your professional level employability prospects and provide the foundation for further, higher level, graduate studies.