Criminology and Forensic Investigation

This is a Connected Degree

Portsmouth is the only University in the UK with the flexibility to choose when to do an optional paid placement or self-employed year. Either take a placement in your third year, or finish your studies first and complete a placement in your fourth year. You can decide if and when to take a placement after you've started your course.

Overview

If you want to help solve crimes, it pays to understand criminality from many different angles. This course gives you much broader skills, knowledge and experience than a more traditional ‘forensic science’ degree. Using facilities shared with a real police force, this degree is always relevant, innovative and up-to-date.

From crime scene to evidence lab to court room, you’ll find out how forensic investigation fits into the history, policy and practice of the criminal justice system. And you’ll study the causes of crime, learning what really makes a criminal.

Course highlights

• Develop specialist forensic skills in simulated crime scene and laboratory practical sessions

• Explore new experimental techniques including the use of Virtual Reality (VR), inspired by innovative VR research at the University of Portsmouth

• Learn from criminology, probation and policing experts who are actively involved in industry, and who shape its future with ground-breaking research in areas like forensic interview techniques and wildlife crime

• Benefit from our strong partnerships and links with the criminal justice and forensic investigation industry

• Hear from guest speakers such as fire investigators, crime scene managers, pathologists, specialist police officers, firearm officers and forensic archaeologists

• Tailor your degree from a wide range of modules, including crime and mental health, hate crime, dangerous offenders and public protection

• Gain pre-entry qualifications for careers in the police or probation service, and develop skills in problem solving and analysis that all kinds of employers value

"If you want to look at the practical side of crime this is the course for you. It shows you so many different roles that you wouldn't even think existed. The course is really practical too: looking at police investigations and how they're run was so interesting." – Robyn Juniper , BSc Hons Criminology & Forensic Studies student

Careers and opportunities

Because this course blends criminology and forensic studies, you’ll graduate with a particularly broad range of careers open to you. Your lecturers can help you identify the options that excite you most, so you can choose to study modules that fit your ambitions.

You’ll be especially well-prepared for the wide variety of criminal justice careers where forensic awareness plays a key role – from forensic practitioner in the police, probation or prison services, through to rewarding areas of expertise like community safety, crime prevention and criminological research. More broadly, the impressive problem-solving skills you develop could prove valuable in all kinds of careers.

What jobs can you do with a criminology and forensic investigation degree?

Our graduates have gone on to roles including:

• crime scene investigator

• investigative data analyst

• police officer

• intelligence researcher

• probation officer

• youth offending support officer

• emergency planning officer

• prison officer

• forensic and other laboratories

• teaching (with further training)

You could also do postgraduate study in areas such as forensic science.

Ongoing careers support

Get experience while you study, with support to find part-time jobs, volunteering opportunities, and work experience.

Towards the end of your degree and for up to five years after graduation, you’ll receive one-to-one support from our Graduate Recruitment Consultancy to help you find your perfect role.

Year 1
Core modules in this year include:

• Crime Scene and Forensic Investigation
• Criminal Justice
• Essential Skills for Criminologists
• Psychology for Criminologists
• Understanding Criminology

There are no optional modules in this year.

Year 2
Core modules in this year include:

• Forensic Evidence from Crime Scene to Court
• Questioning Criminology
• Researching Criminology

Optional modules in this year currently include:

• Contemporary Terrorism and the Global Response
• Crimes of the Powerful
• Forensic Linguistics (Language as Evidence)
• Global Environmental Justice
• Global Security
• Hate Crime
• Introduction to Teaching
• Mass Fatality Incidents
• Missing Persons: Issues and Investigation
• Organised Crime
• Penology and Prison
• Policing and Society
• Principles of Economic Crime Investigation
• Professional Experience
• Psychology and Security
• Underworlds: Crime, Deviance and Punishment in Britain, 1500-1900
• Victims of Crime: Key Players in Criminal Justice
• Wildlife Crime: Threats and Response
• Youth Crime, Youth Justice

Placement year (Optional)
On this course, you can do an optional work placement year between your 2nd and 3rd years to get valuable experience working in industry. We’ll help you secure a work placement that fits your situation and ambitions. You’ll get mentoring and support throughout the year.

Year 3
Core modules in this year include:

• Complex Forensic Investigations

Optional modules in this year currently include:

• Crime and New Technologies: Theory and Practice
• Dangerous Offenders and Public Protection
• Dissertation / Major Project
• Forensic Psychology: Investigation
• Forensic Psychology: Language and the Law
• Forensic Taphonomy
• Fraud and Financial Investigation
• Gender and Crime
• Green Crime and Environmental Justice
• Independent Project (SSCJ)
• Introduction to Teaching
• Miscarriages of Justice
• Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing
• Policing: Communities, Intelligence and Information
• Policing: Law, Policy and Practice
• Political Extremism
• Professional Development: Recruiters and Candidates
• Professional Experience
• Treatment and Rehabilitation of Offenders
• True Crime - The Making of a Genre
• Understanding and Addressing Sexual Offending

We use the best and most current research and professional practice alongside feedback from our students to make sure course content is relevant to your future career or further studies.

Therefore, some course content may change over time to reflect changes in the discipline or industry and some optional modules may not run every year. If a module doesn’t run, we’ll let you know as soon as possible and help you choose an alternative module.

You’ll be assessed through:

coursework
reports
presentations
group projects
a dissertation

You’ll be able to test your skills and knowledge informally before you do assessments that count towards your final mark.

You can get feedback on all practice and formal assessments so you can improve in the future.

The way you’re assessed may depend on the modules you select. As a guide, students on this course last year were typically assessed as follows:

Year 1 students: 27% by written exams, 7% by practical exams and 66% by coursework
Year 2 students: 3% by practical exams and 97% by coursework
Year 3 students: 8% by written exams, 5% by practical exams and 87% by coursework