Program Overview

The MSc Youth Justice at Aberystwyth University offers a unique opportunity to study the youth justice system in England and Wales. This degree adopts a focused and specifically critical standpoint in the consideration of relevant issues, from within England and Wales. Programme content directly relates to emerging critical youth justice research and provides you with an opportunity to develop a sophisticated understanding of current policy, legislation and its historical development, legislation and research, and current and rapidly developing changes in conceptions of ‘children’ and their treatment within and beyond current systems. The degree programme also offers opportunities to engage in a comparative analysis of the approaches adopted in other jurisdictions in order to provide further critique of the current and developing picture, and evaluate the impact of research on practice and policy.

Students will be supported throughout to become independent researchers and writers in the realm of youth justice, through a series of lecture-seminar combined sessions, at which you will also be expected to lead discussions. Writing skills are a particular focus, with assignments structured as journal articles and feedback given mirroring peer reviews, to prepare you for academic publication with advice and guidance from published academics.

The degree comprises two compulsory modules (Critical Youth Justice and International Comparative Youth Justice), and a themed youth justice dissertation. Critical Youth Justice covers a wide range of topics including paradigms (justice versus welfare, risk-based youth justice, Child First/Rights-based youth justice), contentious issues (minimum age of criminal responsibility, moral panics, custody and resettlement) and contemporary debates (current topics such as disproportionality, gangs/knife crime). International Comparative Youth Justice comprises a detailed critical exploration of a range of different jurisdictions, for example, Scotland, USA, Australia, Canada, Nordic countries, Japan and New Zealand.