Criminology Level 3

In this unit, you’ll look at exactly what crime is, study the historical development of criminology, and reflect on sources of recorded data such as official police statistics and crime surveys. You’ll also discover some of the reasons people might choose not to a report crime, and why it might go unrecorded by police.

Next, you’ll explore a contentious debate in criminology – is there any link between ethnicity and crime? You’ll also study the issue of racism as it relates to criminality and victimisation, the relationship between gender and crime, and the question of why so few women commit serious offences. Next, you’ll study the causes of youth offending, as well as issues such as death in custody, reconviction, and re-offending.

In the third unit, you’ll study how crime is represented in the media, and attempt to answer the question of whether it increases offending rates. You’ll examine intriguing phenomena such as the ‘CSI effect’, whereby criminals learn how to cover their tracks by watching fictional crime shows. Moving on, you’ll study the ‘moral panic’ effect, including questions such as whether video games truly do make children violent, focusing particularly on the case of James Bulger.

Moving on, you’ll learn about the various components of the criminal justice system, including the police and Crown Prosecution Service. You’ll study the structure of the criminal courts system, and examine the history of policing from Henry II to the creation of the Metropolitan Police in 1829. Next, you’ll cover the purpose of sentencing criminals, as well as the types of sentences received by offenders in England and Wales.

In this unit, you’ll look at the various types of crime, such as hate crime, violent crime, criminal damage, and fraud. You’ll cover the facts surrounding victims of crime, including which victims of crime are likely to be championed by the media rather than ignored. You’ll focus on the Cleveland abductions, and attempt to answer the question of whether white victims receive more media attention than people of colour. Moving on, you’ll study the factors which increase a person’s likelihood of becoming a victim of crime, and the impact of victimisation.

In unit six, you’ll look at the psychoanalytic theory of crime, based on Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, comprising components such as ‘the id’, ‘the ego’ and ‘the superego’, and assess the usefulness of these concepts as an explanation for criminal behaviour. You’ll also be studying the behaviourist theory of crime, asking whether people can become conditioned to offend by their environment. Moving on, you’ll delve into the cognitive theory of crime, Kohlberg’s theory on moral development, as well as rape myths and rape culture.

In unit seven, you’ll cover norms and values, the Chicago school’s contribution to criminology, and the concentric zone model. You’ll also study mechanical and organic solidarity, and criminological realism.

In the final unit, you’ll look at the work of Cesare Lombroso, often credited as being the founding father of criminology. You’ll study genetic theories of offending, studies that have been carried out to confirm or a deny a link between criminal behaviour and biological characteristics, and biochemical links to offending.