Program Overview

Why Policing and Investigation?

The growth in policing and investigation as an area of criminal justice work is now broader than just the police service. This course offers you the opportunity to critically explore and assess the nature and use of policing and investigatory work in a variety of social contexts. You’ll be supported to gain the knowledge and skills you’ll need to prepare for a future career working in organisations who engage with and in policing activities, including but not limited to local, national and international policing organisations, local councils, private and voluntary sector organisations. Please note, some of these careers will require further education or training.*

This course is not accredited through the College of Policing and is not a ‘pre-join degree’ programme allowing direct entry into the police. It does prepare you well for one of the level 6 ‘top-up’ direct entry degrees that can be undertaken if you have already been awarded a degree and meet police entry requirements. If you're interested in one of the entry routes into policing, please visit the College of Policing website.

This course provides the opportunity for you to:

• Critically study the range of formal and informal responses to the prevention, detection and investigation of criminal and anti-social behaviours.
• Explore the different ways of understanding the work of the police and other policing and investigative agencies nationally, cross-nationally and internationally, as well as comparatively with other models of policing.
• Consider the nature and function of policing, crime prevention and investigative work within the context of social control and order, and the relationship of such work to the state and to the general public.
• Understand theories of criminal behaviour, strategies and theories of policing, preventing and investigating crime, accountability and legitimacy, evidence-based research and crime data analysis that can inform policing and the conduct of investigations.
• Investigate key areas of particular challenge such as risk, security and terrorism, serious crime, international and borderless crime.
• Explore methods of research crime and policing issues, and the application of research evidence to policing and investigation strategies, policy and practice.