Unit 1 – Changing Awareness of Crime

The purpose of this unit is to plan campaigns for change relating to crime. Questions we will explore in this unit include:

• What different types of crime take place in our society?

• What types of crime are not as heavily reported in the media? Why? 

• Many people learn about the fear and fascination of crime from the media, but is the media a reliable source of information? 

• To what extent are we misled by our tastes in programmes and newspapers about crime? 

Unit 2 – Criminological Theories 

The purpose of this unit is to apply your understanding of the public perceptions of crime and campaigns for change studied in Unit 1 with criminological theories to examine how both are used to set policy. We will look at questions such as: 

• How do we decide what behaviour is criminal?

• How do we explain why people commit crime? 

Unit 3 – Crime Scene to Courtroom  

In this unit you will develop the understanding and skills needed to examine information in order to review the justice of verdicts in criminal cases.

Unit 4 – Crime and Punishment  

In this unit you will develop skills in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the process of social control in delivering policy in practice.