Program Overview

Impatient to deepen your political understanding? Our BA Politics with Criminology will allow you to study a wide variety of topics, from questions of power, representation, and distributional justice in democracies, the political underpinnings of economic development in countries of the Global South, to international phenomena such as migration, trade and conflict. At the same time you will acquire knowledge of the criminal justice system in Britain, explore foundational criminological ideas, and be able to learn about current debates in crime and control.

This course will provide you with analytic skills to understand a variety of political actors; including social movements, political parties, governments, and non-government organizations. Alongside this criminology gives you insights into the workings of the criminal justice system.

Areas that you can expect to explore include, but are not limited to:

• Concepts in political science: state, laws, wars and political parties
• International relations
• Democratic systems and political power
• Theories of crime and control
• Gender, ethnicity, and global dimensions of crime and control
• International state crime and human rights

Placement year

Alternatively, on a placement year you gain relevant work experience within an external business, giving you a competitive edge in the graduate job market and providing you with key contacts within the industry. You will be responsible for finding your placement, but with support and guidance provided by both your department and our Employability and Careers Centre.

A Placement-Linked Project module is also available as an alternative to the dissertation module in your third year. You attend shorter placements (a minimum of 150 hours in total), and use your learning on placement to inform a research project; fantastic work experience for your CV.

If you complete a placement year you'll only pay 20% of your usual tuition fee to Essex for that year.