Crime and Criminal Justice (M4003)

15 credits, Level 5

Autumn teaching

On this module, you’ll study criminal law and ideas about criminal responsibility. You’ll examine two specialised substantive areas of criminal law, covering:

• homicide
• non-fatal offences against the person
• sexual offences
• hate crime.

You’ll then examine aspects of international criminal law. This includes its institutional framework and an in-depth analysis of one of the core international crimes, e.g:

• genocide
• crimes against humanity
• war crimes.

You’ll also explore some aspects of criminal law theory, such as:

• theories of punishment
• why conduct should be criminalised
• issues of procedure and evidence relevant to substantive law.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 22 hours of contact time and about 128 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2026/27. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.