BA (Hons) Criminology

Year 2 Core Modules

You must study and pass all five core modules

Brief description

Key concepts regarding crime and punishment, how they are understood and represented in society and what impact this understanding of crime can have.

Module content:

• The meaning of crime, deviance and punishment: What do we mean by crime, deviance and punishment? How and why do different societies define certain behaviours as criminal whilst others do not? External and internal social control; the problem of social order; conformity and deviance.
• The extent of crime and deviance: The incidence of crime; How reliable are official statistics on crime? Who commits most crime? Are official statistics on crime useful? How do we ‘talk’ about crime and define criminal behaviour?
• Crimes of the powerful: Exploring the dark figure of crime: uncovering the implications of dominant constructions of criminality. What crimes exist that we know very little about? Why might that be? Includes engagement with crimes of the powerful including state corporate crime and human trafficking.
• Inequality and crime: The meaning of Criminalisation and an examination of aspects of this, including an examination of the shift from criminalising HARM to criminalising OFFENCE.

Brief description

Introduction to the work of three key social theorists, Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, to critically illustrate the nature of capitalist modernity and the foundations of contemporary sociological theory and practice.

Module content:

• Karl Marx: Capitalism, Workers` Movement and The Communist Manifesto (1848); Dialectics, Fetishism and the Purpose of Critique; Value, Labour, Money; Capital, Surplus Value and Exploitation; Primitive Accumulation, the Logic of Separation and the Question of Crisis; Class Struggle, Revolution and Communism.
• Max Weber: Introduction: contextual overview and biography; The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; Conception of sociology and methodology; Bureaucratisation and rationalisation; Class, status and party; Political sociology: power, legitimacy and the state.
• Emile Durkheim: Introduction: contextual overview and biography; The Rules of Sociological Method; Suicide; The Division of Labour in Society; Morality and Religion; Crime, Deviance and the Law.

Brief description

Ways of interpreting new laws, forms of policing and new forms of criminalisation.

Module content:

• Criminalisation: The criminalisation of everything; the development of new laws, forms of surveillance and ways of thinking about crime.
• Race and class: Moral and amoral panics, past and present, regarding class and race.
• Tolerance, intolerance and zero tolerance: Changing nature of the elite, of the legal subject and the new criminalising dynamic.
• Fear, risk and regulation: The importance of policing fear and developing a culture of control.
• The rise and fall of ‘youth’: Freedom and rebellion; regulation and safety of generation ‘Snowflake’.

Brief description

This module complements earlier programming modules. Learn in a practical rather than theoretical way, some of the fundamental ideas of software engineering so you can develop and communicate designs for small and large scale software systems.

Module content:

• Problem-solving: Capturing requirements, general problem-solving techniques, testing, the idea of a non-programming language.
• OO Analysis Design and Implementation: Identify objects in a system and structure data and information in class definitions. Mapping object oriented design principles to programming constructs.
• Abstraction: Understand how to work with complexity by using code abstraction, code blocks and control flows.
• Class modelling: Introduction to UML class diagrams.
• Data design – an OO approach: Modelling using object-oriented techniques, drawing informal and formal diagrams to describe information and behaviour (including UML), design patterns.
• Data design – a relational approach: Modelling using relational techniques, theoretical and practical design concerns, constructing and querying a database using basic SQL Modelling using relational techniques, theoretical and practical design concerns, constructing and querying a database using basic SQL.

Brief description

Media discourses of criminal activity and the state. 

Module content:

• Crimes of the Powerful: The state as criminal actor.
• Media, Crime and Power: Investigative Journalism, Corruption and the Political Process.
• State Corporate Corruption.
• The Nation State and Violence.
• Terrorism and Counter Terrorism in the Global War on Terror.
• Crimes Against Humanity.
• Transnational Organised Crime.
• The Geopolitical War on Drugs.
• Urban Legends, Conspiracy theories and other Stigmatised Knowledge.

Years 1 and 2 Elective Modules

You must study and pass one elective module of your choosing

Introduction of the concept of smart cities - hard infrastructure, social capital including local skills and community institutions, and digital technologies to fuel sustainable economic development and provide an attractive environment for all.

Module content:

• Social impacts

There is an overall need for theoretical and methodological plurality in how we assess the impact and value of future cities in terms for individual and societal well−being. Gaps in our understanding relate to the complex ways individuals and groups engage with built and natural settings, the cultural goods and consequent benefits that may arise and the inequalities associated with these cultural benefits.

• Security

Different types of cyber-attacks that could be launched against a Smart City. Impact of cyber-attacks. Approaches to securing the smart grid and critical infrastructure, i.e. improving cyber resilience.

• Sustainable urban food production

Includes the long established allotments movement to large-scale projects based on sustainability throughout the food chain. Urban food production includes the long established allotments movement. The demand for urban growing also responds to the densification and intensification of living areas, due to population rise, migration and demographic aging with lower housing and ‘garden’ space standards placing greater importance on collective production.

• Energy, waste and water

At present, water and wastewater facilities are often the largest and most energy intensive responsibilities owned and operated by local governments, representing up to 35% of municipal energy use. Future cities will need to utilise more sustainable methods of water and wastewater management and renewable energy production.

• Digital technologies

​Digital technologies will play a major role in creating sustainable and resilient cities offering a vehicle for more inclusive decision−making process and promoting dialog amongst architects, urban planners, the public and technologists.

Develop a range of skills, knowledge and techniques within the natural, technological and social sciences relevant to the study of environmental sustainability and life in the twenty-first century. Understand the critical issues that confront humanity and begin to discern appropriate responses.

Module content:
• The challenge of sustainable development
Problems associated with life in the 21st Century and the relationship to scientific provisionalism and uncertainty.

• The genesis of sustainable development concept
Developments associated with the Club of Rome are outlined while Limits to Growth and the Tragedy of the Commons.

• Evolution of sustainable development
The Reo Summit and Suitability, and Policy Developments thereof.

• Scientific inquiry and sustainable development
Controversial issues like climate change, oil peak, and food production and the role of science in helping delimit them as problematic.

• Mainstreaming sustainability
Sustainability and Mitigation, Adaptation and Resilience, as individual and social concerns, and their role in transformation.

• Communicating sustainability
Human well-being, Environmental Justice, Environmental Policy and the practicalities of Sustainability in Scotland.

• Sustainable development in practice
Community Empowerment associated with Land Reform. Energy Production and Food Production in Tayside.

• Ethics and sustainability policy
Active citizenship and globalisation.

• Innovating locally, transforming globally
Transformations required to embrace Sustainability.

• Active relationship for sustainable futures
Thinking globally, acting locally.

How lifestyle can effect physical and mental well-being. This module enables you to reflect on your own lifestyle choices and how to incorporate good health behaviours into your life.

Module content:

• Sleep and stress
  The impact of sleep and stress on health and performance. Completion of sleep diaries and questionnaires related to sleep patterns and stress.
   
• Physical activity
  Current physical activity recommendations, components of physical fitness.
   
• Physical inactivity
  Understanding why people are inactive. The link between physical inactivity, obesity and type 2 diabetes.
   
• Physical activity and mental well-being
  The effects of physical activity on mental well-being.
   
• The effect of carbohydrate consumption and exercise on blood glucose
  Measurement and recording of blood glucose in response to the carbohydrate ingestion and exercise.
   
• Simple health and fitness testing
  Measurement and recording of data. Tests will include blood pressure, strength, endurance and flexibility. Data will be compared with normative values for these tests.

Develop critical thinking skills that form the basis for progression across the academic disciplines of the university. Learn how to recognise, construct, evaluate, criticise and defend different forms of argument.

Module content:
•    Potential 'timeless' debates 
Debates delivered by internal and external experts on: e.g. existence of God; privacy and civil society; private property; money as source of 'evil'; nature/nurture; free speech; pornography; capital punishment; prostitution; animal experimentation; meaning of justice; abortion; affirmative action; just war; trade union power; good life/good political community; human nature; monarchy; value of democracy; meaning of equality; citizenship rights.

•    Potential 'timely' debates
Debates delivered by internal and external experts on: eg, Scottish independence, academic freedom; drug legalisation; drug use in sport; immigration; free health care; war on terror; EU membership; euthanasia; progressive taxation; race and gender discrimination; gay marriage; human rights; politics/sport; global warming; internet censorship; nuclear power; education league tables; nuclear weapons; GM agriculture; religion; cloning; fair trade; value of contemporary culture.

•    Critical thinking seminars
Follow-up discursive discipline specific seminar sessions led by teaching staff on topics covered in formal debates. Learn to identify types of argument presented, evaluate perspectives and to reflect upon their own reasoning processes and value assumptions. The debates and seminars facilitate a foundation for the acquisition of graduate attributes.

•    WEB CT Wiki discussion forum
Work in small groups to write a short 800 word indicative "Thinking Summary" online Wiki of the arguments presented in each debate. These summaries will be constructed by each designated Thinking Group of three students using the Wiki facility on Blackboard which will facilitate further discussion on the moderated WEB CT discussion forum.

The social, managerial, economic, political, and technical challenges and opportunities associated with emerging renewable energy innovation, production, supply and consumption.

Module content:
•    Renewable energy non-technical challenges and opportunities
Social and political challenges and opportunities of renewable energy production supply and consumption. Economic and environmental challenges of renewable energy production supply and consumption. Strategic and managerial challenges of renewable energy production supply and consumption.

•    Renewable energy technological challenges and opportunities
Geotechnical, Geophysical and Hydrographic information; Knowledge of sources of hydrographic information and interpretation of published charts. Forces on structures; Appreciation of the various forces acting on marine structures. Technical limitations and challenges of energy distribution systems and energy storage. Current technological development trend, collaborative innovation in renewable energy.

An understanding of the concepts of tolerance, and the importance of making sound ethical decisions. Develop the qualities, characteristics and skills to meet the aspiration for Abertay graduates to become global and active citizens. 

Module content:
•    Introduction to equality and ethics legislation 

•    Diversity competence and moral/ethical reasoning 
Inclusiveness, equal opportunities, positive action, reasonable adjustment.

•    Attributes for the workplace and for global citizenship.

•    Reflective practice 
Application of models of reflective practice.

•    Contemporary issues

Learn how to adjust language to suit context. Analyse a range of linguistic issues, including “proper English”, how language can be used to create moral panics, and the ethics of communication.

Module content:

•    “Good English”
The role of standardisation, dialect and idiolect − how we choose language to reflect our identities and our role in a speech or discourse community.

• Language and influence
How the media constructs narratives to persuade or inform the audience (and how to tell the difference).

• Creating a narrative across genres
The conventions, freedoms and limitations of different forms; using these forms in new ways.

• Narrative changes over time
How authors reinvent old stories to reflect current concerns.

• Technical writing
The use and manipulation of data; hearing the author's voice; critiquing "bad science".

• The ethics of communication
 (Electronic) media and ownership, attribution and theft.

“Personal” digital safety to make computer security fun, practical and eye-opening.  Learn the base knowledge that will continue to be relevant to future generations of devices.

Module content:
•    Current state of computer security
An overview including legal aspects.

•    Cyber-attacks, vulnerabilities and threats
Malware, Network attacks (denial of service, packet sniffing etc.), bots and rootkits. How the bad guys can obtain your password.

•    Information leakage
Recovery and forensics recovering deleted or corrupted files. What your browser knows about you. Web browser forensics.

•    Securing networks, accounts and devices
Defence against malware, honeypots, Secure protocols, intrusion detection, Password security, Mobile device security.

•    Human aspects of cyber security 
The Psychology of Hackers, Social Engineering, identity theft, Usability vs security.

•    Breaking the code
An introduction to cryptography, Encryption and Decryption, public and private keys, the key exchange problem.

•    History of cryptography 
The Caesar cipher, polyalphabetic ciphers, the Playfair cipher, the role of Enigma and the Bletchley Park cryptographers in WWII.

•    Computers and Crypto Diffie-Hellman and RSA encryption
Phil Zimmerman and “Pretty Good Protection". Quantum Cryptography – Provably unbreakable information hiding. Mathematical Underpinnings – Large prime numbers and why they matter.

•    Steganography
 A picture's worth a thousand words when you're hiding the wood in the trees.

•    The law, society and cryptography 
Why you can be imprisoned for forgetting your password. The Civil Liberties Arguments for and against strong-crypto. International perspectives on information hiding, information freedom, the right to privacy and the conflicts between these. Are unbreakable cyphers an unqualified “good thing”?

Develop perspectives on the key challenges faced by humankind such as environmental change, pollution, food security, energy provision, conflicts, terrorism, emerging diseases, and changing demographics. Understand the overwhelming complexity of the problems and the need for interdisciplinary approaches to create solutions.

Module content:

• Interdisciplinary research
  Introductory lectures will discuss the definitions, methods, benefits, challenges, and drawbacks of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches and the role of public policy influencing research
   
• Global challenges
  Challenges from different disciplines. Examples include: Climate Change: causes and impact; Serious Games: science and application of visualization and games; Global Security: valuing ecosystems: balancing policy, economics and environment; Contemporary Challenges to Healthy Living; Food Security: global threats and local needs; Energy Poverty: space travel.

Design an activity to communicate and present scientific principles to primary school children. Learn about working as a group and how to communicate complex ideas.

Module content:
• Developing a science communication activity
Target audience, sources of information to identify suitable activities (CfE documentation etc.), health and safety, issues around working with specific groups, accessibility, ethics, costing and sustainability.

• The landscape of engagement and current practice
Types of public engagement activities, target audiences, funding, role of learned societies, universities and other bodies. Public engagement in Dundee and Tayside.

Work in a team to develop game design concepts for serious applications. Gain the knowledge, processes and techniques of game design and study examples of serious games developed to benefit society.

Module content:
•    Overview of Games
A brief history of games, game art and gamification.

•    Games for change
Understanding how games can benefit society.

•    Game mechanics
Deconstructing core components of popular game genres.

•    Gameplay constructs
What is gameplay and how is this broken down and communicated within the game design.

•    The game design process
Conceptualisation, iteration, phases of workflow.

•    Game design theory and practice
Identifying the elements within effective design and how they are implemented.

•    Documenting the design interactive
Oriented design, technical design, capturing requirements.

•    Business models
Exploring methods that can be used to generate revenue within the game design.

Develop the knowledge and awareness required to make good career decisions and the skills and confidence to successfully navigate each stage of the recruitment process for graduate jobs.

Module content:

• Developing self-awareness
  Profiling of personal strengths, values and priorities in relation to career choice.
   
• Developing opportunity awareness
  Generating career ideas based on your personal profile; Exploring the range of graduate opportunities within job sectors of interest; Reviewing occupations that are directly related to your own subject discipline.
   
• Developing a career action plan
  Matching your personal profile with best fit opportunities in the job market; Creating a timeline of actions to improve your prospects of meeting your aim.

• Developing job seeking skills
  Sourcing suitable job opportunities - both advertised and unadvertised; Creating a professional image online; Identifying the skills and qualities employers look for in graduates; Learning how to produce targeted applications for specific job roles; Practising the presentation of your strengths and motivations in face to face selection activities.

Learn about natural disaster such as landslides and flooding, structural disasters such as the Tay Rail Bridge and the system of critical infrastructure (such as road, rail, air and shipping transport networks, power grid, gas and water networks, health system) that constitute the backbone of modern societies.

Module content:
•    Overview of the scope and the content of concept of critical infrastructure failure during natural disasters and resilience against such failures
The consequences of geophysical, hydrological and meteorological disasters on critical infrastructure and critical infrastructure protection capabilities against natural disasters. Interdependencies of critical infrastructures during large disasters, presents a brief review of current research being done in this field, and presents a methodology to address interdependencies.

•    The identification of the vulnerabilities of the critical systems
The critical systems upon which modern society, economy, and polity depend. The identification of the vulnerabilities of these systems threats that might exploit these vulnerabilities. The effort to develop techniques to mitigate these vulnerabilities through improved design.

•     Flooding in Scotland
General overview of fluvial, pluvial and coastal flooding, the structural, economic and societal impact and responses to flooding. Resources will include historical examples, current policies and information (including SEPA flood maps). Case study (with virtual/actual field visit?) the Perth Floods of 1990 and 1993 and the Perth flood defence scheme*

•    Landslide origins, types and mitigations
General overview what landslides are, why they happen and what can be done to prevent them.

•    Structural failure
An example such as why the Tay Bridge failed and what it meant for the Forth Rail Bridge.

•    Reports and investigations
The role of reports in accident and disaster investigations in creating informative reports; case studies of accidents, disasters, learning from history, learning from case studies, learning from common law

Introduction to the skills and knowledge needed to launch a small business successfully. This module will define and help you acquire the personal and professional skills needed to develop a professional career and/or to succeed as entrepreneurs in Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs).

Module content:

• Understanding entrepreneurship.
   
• Generating successful business ideas.
   
• Environmental scanning.
   
• Developing a credible business plan that includes evaluating business ideas.
   
• Presenting the business idea.

An understanding of some of the processes involved in food production. Discuss common misconceptions and ideas which present the food and nutritional industries in a bad light.

Module content:
•    Student led investigations
Student led investigations of the different sectors within the food and drink industry including: prebiotics – and the controversy surrounding the term; if barbequing is a healthy cooking method; and exposing the celebrity chef - common Myths about cooking.

•    Consumerism
Does the food industry listen to us? Understanding consumer and sensory science to better understand why you buy the products you buy.  How food/public health is reported by the media? The French paradox / Mediterranean diet.

•    Future of food
Ethical food production and the future of foods, and what’s waste got to do with it?

•    Debunking myths
Debunking food myths, more science than science fiction in our food today, like the science behind getting sauce out of a bottle and what to drink – Whisky or Beer?

•    Facts from fiction
Finding facts from fiction, investigating the three-second rule – should I eat things that have fallen on the floor? What’s so super about super-foods? Fat or sugar: Which is worse?

Learn how we approach and understand mental health, from historic, social, therapeutic, and individual perspectives. Explore questions such as ‘what is madness?’, ‘how does society position people with mental illness?’, and ‘how do we best respond to challenges to our mental health?’

Module content:

• Historical and cultural perspective on mental illness
  How do we ‘think’ about mental health, and mental ill health?
   
• Diagnosis and the anti-psychiatry movement
  Who holds the power to decide what is normal in terms of psychological well-being and behaviour?
   
• Gender, culture and mental health
  How gendered cultural expectations and representations influence how we respond to mental health issues.
   
• Media representations
  The impact of film and literature on attitudes and understandings of mental health.
   
• Resilience, treatment and recovery
  Common mental health problems in the UK, treatment and management, and frameworks for enhancing well-being and resilience.

An introduction to the wide range of disciplines in forensic investigation. Learn how crimes are investigated from the moment of reporting through to the presentation of the evidence in court. A hypothetical case study provides an over-arching framework in which to explore the critical aspects of forensic investigations. It involves not only physical and electronic evidence, but also statements from witnesses, suspects and victims which requires cross discipline collaboration of professionals.

Module content:
• Crime scene investigation
How a crime scene is examined in the context of incomplete contextual information and to avoid loss or contamination of evidence and the maximising of the value of evidential material.

• Media involvement
Positive and negative effects of the media/public interest in the crime.

• Forensic biology
Examination and evidential value of body fluids, DNA, hairs and fibres.

• Forensic chemistry
Analysis for drugs, toxicological analysis, firearms, explosives, and trace evidence.

• Digital sources
Evidence from CCT, mobile phones, computer hardware, on−line behaviour.

• Forensic reasoning and practice
An introduction to forensic problem solving, thinking styles, case assessment and interpretation.

• Psychology of witnesses and suspects
False confessions, offender profiling, effects and avoidance of cognitive bias in forensic science through process design.

Year 3 Core Modules

You must study and pass all four core modules

Brief description

Examine the relationship between gender and crime.

Module content:

• The feminist critique of criminology: The emergence of the feminist critique and the challenge to the feminine 'other'.
• Women and crime: The pattern of women's crime. Deviance, femininity and the response to female transgression.
• Men and crime: Masculinity and crime, crime as structured action, crime as a resource for doing gender. The situational context and crime.

Brief description

Introduction to key issues and debates in the history and development of contemporary policing in the UK.

Module content:

• The history of the Police: ‘Policing before the police’; from ‘Peelers’ to ‘crime fighters’ to ‘risk managers’ to ‘knowledge workers’; models of policing.
• Policing structures and systems: What do policing structures look like? How is the service organised? Hierarchies; police powers, police cultures; policing and the media, myth and reality.
• Police operations: Analysing and investigating crime; policing styles revisited; crime reduction and/or community safety; responding to terrorism; organised crime.
• Key debates in contemporary policing: Governance; accountability; ethics; performance management; policing ‘futures’; surveillance.

Brief description

The importance of empirical research to the social sciences. Learn to identify and use appropriate data collection tools, apply analysis techniques to data generated and reflect upon their meaning, relevance and ethical implications.

Module content:

• Principles of quantitative research: The elements of statistical data, how quantitative data is collected, structured and presented, how inferences and conclusions can be drawn through the application of basic statistical tests and how SPSS software can facilitate the organisation and analysis of quantitative data.
• Qualitative data collection skills: An overview of qualitative data-collection methods, how such techniques are applicable in an array of different ways to different research contexts and how you should reflect upon yourself as an active participant in these kinds of research endeavours.
• Approaches to qualitative data analysis: Engage in the analysis of data produced using qualitative data collection techniques. The main emphasis here will be on thematic coding and how qualitative researchers use sociological knowledge to inductive derive systematic meaning from the data they generate. The use of NVivo computer software in qualitative data analysis.
• Research ethics and ethical issues: Research ethics and ethical issues in terms of research subject matter, the application of data collection methods, how research can impact in different ways upon research participants and wider society, as well as the formal ethical guidelines and requirements that govern sociological research.

Brief description

The prison system, the experience of imprisonment and penal policy and practice in the UK. Learn about developments in penal policy and practice, the lived experience of imprisonment and consider alternatives to imprisonment.

Module content:

• Contemporary developments in penal theory, policy and practice: Penal institutions in contemporary society. The crises of legitimacy in penal institutions. Reorganisation and reform. Privatisation of the prison system.
• Prison life the reality: ‘Doing time’ the actuality of prison life, the ‘total institution’? Strategies for survival, regime activities, ‘banged up’ prisoners, prison staff and civilian staff. Dealing with social exclusion. The diversity of the prison population. Stratification and power within prisons.
• Alternatives to imprisonment the way forward?: Reducing risk or protecting the public? Reducing fear of crime? Human or humane containment and warehousing. Therapeutic prisons. Electronic tagging, community service orders, mediation/reparation.
• Attitudes to imprisonment: Why do we have prisons? Why are they at the centre of penal policy? Are they culturally ‘acceptable’? Abolitionism.
• Foreign nationals: Detention centres; foreign national prisoners and race relations in prisons; are immigration detention centres new types of penal establishments; critical issues surrounding foreign national prisoners in the UK.

Year 3 Option Modules 

You must study and pass two option modules of your choosing – one in Term 1 and one in Term 2

Brief description

Criminological and sociological perspectives on drug governance and addiction

Module content:

• Historical, political and social contexts of drugs consumption and governance: Historical contexts in the growth of drug consumption and its governance. State and criminal justice drugs policy in the UK. 12 step and other recovery movements.
• Theorising addiction: Freedom, compulsion and willpower. Neuropharmacology (and its critics) the social construction of addiction. Sociological approaches.
• Case studies: Heroin and opioids. Smoking and anti-smoking. Alcohol.

Brief description

The history of race and racism in 19th, 20th and 21st century Britain, from the 'Scramble for Africa' through the postwar/post-colonial period to the present. Examine the various forces, processes and discourses through which race, ethnicity and the racialised subject have been constructed, shaped and changed. Also examine theoretical approaches to and debates about race and ethnicity, racism, race relations and anti-racism, and how these have developed in response to both historical developments and social-political activism.

Module content: 

• The concept and construction of race and ethnicity: The concept and construction of race and ethnicity, and the production of racial knowledge from the colonial period to the present.
• Race, ethnicity and nation: The (re)construction and relationship between race, ethnicity and nation in Britain in light of postwar/ post-colonial immigration and the end of empire.
• Race, ethnicity and identity: The politics, construction and expression of racial and ethnic identities in post-colonial Britain in response to colonialism, migration, discrimination and racism.
• Race and class: The relationship between race and class as sites of social-political identification, power, inequality, political struggle and analysis, as well as debates over which is the most effective framework for analysis and activism.
• Race and gender: The relationship between race and gender as sites of social-political identification, power, inequality, political struggle and analysis, as well as debates over which is the most effective framework for analysis and activism.
• Race, crime, civil unrest and political protest: The relationship (within analysis and representation) between race, the law, crime, civil unrest and political protest against socioeconomic conditions, policing and state policy.
• Anti-racism, race relations and multiculturalism: The history and development of anti-racist and race relations discourses, activism, strategies and legislation, how they have attempted to combat forms of racism, discrimination and inequality, and debates surrounding them.
• Race, ethnicity and the politics of popular culture: Popular culture (e.g. music, film or television) in terms of postcolonial cultural politics, multiculturalism, representation, identity and political activism.

Brief description

Introduction to the study of surveillance and cybercrime using a perspective that sees technologies as socially constructed.An analysis of the ways in which surveillance, cybercrime and cybersecurity can be seen as socio-technical assemblages.

Module content: 

• Concepts on the social study of technology: such as (a) Social Construction of Technology (b) Technological Determinism (c) Actor-Network Theory.
• Case studies in surveillance: such as (a) Automation of surveillance (b) Algorithmic Surveillance (c) Dataveillance.
• Case studies in cybercrime and security: such as: (a) malware software (b) security policies and mechanisms (c) Encryption (d) the Dark Web (e) manipulation of trust and reputation.

Brief description

Examine crimes and harm against the natural environment, generally referred to as ‘green crime’. Focus on competing theoretical tools that aim to discern issues pertinent to green crime and environmental harm. Discuss theoretical propositions including: environmental risk, environmental rights and ecological justice, and in doing so, analyse issues like climate change, land reform, and wildlife conservation. Where appropriate case studies local to Scotland are used. 

Module content:

• Contextualising green criminology: Traditional theoretical tools as regards Sociology and Criminology and their development as theoretical frameworks in understanding environmental crime and harm.
• The risk society, the precariat and green harm crime: The rise of the risk society and the idea of the precariat as a vulnerable class of global peoples.
• Animal rights, species justice and animism: The rise of the ‘environmental paradigm’ as an all-embracing theoretical concept in helping us understand environmental harm and crime. Using the theoretical idea the ‘new-materialism’, non-human agency as regards animal rights and species justice  in relation to contemporary environmental degradation.
• Ecological victims: Confronting the effect of crimes and harms against the environment. The developing concept of ‘green victimology’. Using concepts like poverty, class and gender, it will look at those affected by environmental crime and other environmentally damaging activities, and begin to outline the role of criminal justice in ameliorating these problems.
• The regulation of environmental harm: Environmental crime and governance. The extent to which law and governance contribute to the protection of the environment. In doing so, discuss the interlinked concepts of environmental governance and environmental law and terms such as deliberative democracy.
• Environmental citizenship and ecological justice as a green panacea.
• Wildlife crime and field sports: The case of wildlife hunting and wildlife crime in Scotland. The management of parts of Scotland as grouse moors and the issue of stalking.
• Land-reform and environmental rights: The topical issues of land-reform in Scotland and its embodiment of land rights in relation to environmental justice, as regards Scottish legislation.
• Resource depletion, oil peak and the circular economy: The harms caused by our continuing exploitation of oil, gas and other natural resources into the twenty-first century. The idea of the circular economy in Scotland, as a policy aimed at addressing the environmental harms caused by resource exploitation.
• Policing the environment: NGOs and environmental enforcers: The concept and role of the ‘green movement’, especially that of NGOs, in regulating environmental crime and harm. Theoretical concepts such as ‘Regulation theory’.

Year 4 Core Modules

You must study and pass all three core modules

Brief description

Conduct and present a simple investigation into a sociological topic of their choice, the result of which is a 10,000 word dissertation.

Module content:

• Research design: Selecting the appropriate method for a specified topic and conducting actual research - with guidance from project supervisor.
• Reviewing literature: Collecting evidence within relevant field of research and its application to the field of study.
• Analysing and interpreting data: Collecting, dealing with and understanding data; turning data into words and/or numbers - with guidance from project supervisor.
• Presenting findings: Making research findings ‘public’; writing-up your project - with guidance from project supervisor.

Brief description

Contemporary theoretical approaches in criminology and their application to key issues that characterise contemporary criminal justice policy and practice.

Module content:

• Contemporary Issues in criminal justice policy and practice: Victimology and the ‘victim’; hate crime; semiology; restorative justice 1.
• Contemporary Issues in criminal justice policy and practice: Community safety; anti-social behaviour; restorative justice 2.
• Insecure state: The insecure nature of `policing’ and law making.
• Antisocial behaviour: Key issues, debates and challenges regarding the regulation of antisocial behaviour.

Brief description

Key issues and debates in policing and criminal justice matters for the 21st century. Emerging police issues, contemporary research in tackling gangs and violence, both in US and UK, eco-crime, policing borders and immigration and state crime.

Module content:

• Gang research: What are the issues regarding contemporary research into gangs and violence both in US and UK?
• Policing gangs: What are the key and emerging tactics that have been developed to deal with gangs and violence over time?
• Eco crime: Emerging trends in criminology, including eco-crime or environmental crime.
• Policing borders: How do we deal with cross border issues in policing in a modern and cultural world?
• Policing immigration: How do we deal with immigration? Is it a crime or a humanitarian problem?
• State crime: How do we tackle state and corporate crime?

Year 4 Option Modules

You must study and pass two option modules of your choosing – one in Term 1 and one in Term 2

NOTE module SOC410 runs over both semesters.

Brief description

Analysis of the socio-ideological discourses contained in popular cultural narratives that deal with crime, justice, punishment and morality.

Module content:

• Morbid fascination: The social world, crime and culture.
• Popular culture and ideologies of crime: The criminal body to the social body in accounts of crime.
• The emergence of the detective: Modernity and the rise of the detective, from the science of deduction to the hard-boiled tradition and beyond.
• Crime and the city: The construction of the city as criminogenic; surveillance and danger.
• Punishment, order and justice: Law versus order, retribution and justice.
• Moral orders: The criminal as an ambivalent figure, serial killers and modernity.

Brief description

The question of power in modern societies - the key theme at the heart of political sociology.

Module content:

• Lectures: The lecture programme is divided into four key sections: Sociological and political theories of power; States, citizenship, rights and the law; Alternative visions of power relations - utopia and dystopia; Contesting power - social movements and political protest.
• Tutorials: Students will be required to read set literature each week and to bring notes and points of contention from lectures to tutorials for discussion.

Brief description

Understand the language of crime through conversation analysis, discourse analysis and Wittgensteinian arguments about the public nature of language use, such as insults and bullying. Consider philosophical issues, contemporary studies, debates and critiques in relation to crime and other issues.

Module content:

• Conversation analysis: The roots of conversation analysis in ethnomethodology and the study of social order at the local level. The nature of the conversation analytic approach is examined alongside in terms of classic and contemporary studies. Studies examined include topics such as police interrogations, counsel and witness courtroom interaction, sexual consent and refusals.
• Discourse analysis: The different approaches to discourse analysis: from conversation analytic to critical approaches. The nature of these are explored through contemporary studies including topics such as: criminal speech acts such as conspiracy, threats, solicitation, swearing and offensive language; police talk about trauma; youth crime in the media; constructing the legitimacy of whistleblowers; phishing emails; the reporting of intimate partner violence.
• Wittgenstein and Ordinary Language Philosophy: The resurgence of interest in Wittgenstein's approach to language use. The focus is on the reference to language games and includes consideration of topics such as the law and vagueness; the problem of abusive language, the conceptual instability of consent.

Brief description

Changing attitudes to death, dying and killing. The connections between power and the right to take or preserve life, how death and killing are represented and legitimated in various contexts.

Module content:

• The death-denial thesis: Changing ideas of death and dying from pre-modernity to postmodernity Death denial and ambivalence the sequestration of death The ‘revival’ of death.
• Social, political and legal constructions of death: State crime and deviance, militarism.
• Death and representation: Conflict, commemoration and public memorialising; Death and popular culture, representations of war and death in news.
• Death and power: The social mechanisms of oppression, consent and legitimation that determine when, how and why people kill and die; Terror Genocide.
• Bioethics and politics: The sanctity of life versus the quality of life; The politics of ‘ethical’ decisions about life and death; Capital punishment.

Brief description

The significance of human rights in the world today. Gain a grounding in human rights from a social theoretical perspective, including current debates and trends in human rights.

Module content:

• History and theory of human rights: Classical origins in Greece and Rome. Classical liberal thought. The French and American Revolutions. Marx. Critical social theory. Postcolonialism.
• Human rights in transition: Human rights in armed conflict. Responsibility to protect. Refugees and asylum seekers. Genocide and torture. The International Criminal Court.

Brief description

The opportunity to take up a volunteer/work placement in a public or voluntary sector organisation throughout your fourth year.

Module content:

• Student defined content: The learning will be shaped by the organisation in which you are placed and the role you are assigned.
• Work experience: Gain valuable employability skills.
• Job-seeking skills: Guidance on producing professional CVs is built into the organisation of the module.