Criminal Justice MA

The Criminal Justice MA will challenge you to engage with the contemporary issues faced by the Criminal Justice System. You will develop a deeper understanding of how our justice and penal systems work. There will be many opportunities to develop your understanding of key themes, issues and debates concerning crime, crime control and criminal justice.

A key focus is the complex interplay between criminal justice and criminology. For over two decades, rapid change has been endemic in criminal and penal justice. Procedural stability has been absent as the traditional roles of prisons and probation have been changing. This has led to major changes. The swift and relentless changes in the nature of the criminal and community justice systems in the UK have presented significant challenges for policy makers, managers and front-line practitioners. The MA Criminal Justice programme aims to respond to these challenges, and provide detailed analysis of the complex problems that crime poses for society today.

Modules will be structured around a diverse range of criminal justice, penological and criminological analyses and debates, covering issues such as theory and practice in criminal justice; civil liberties and human rights; gender; race and ethnicity; theoretical criminological frameworks; contemporary issues in the international justice arena and research methods and skills.