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Policing and Criminal Justice

Entry requirements


96 UCAS Tariff Points from a minimum of 2 A levels (or equivalent).

UCAS Tariff Points accepted.

GCSE/National 4/National 5

3 GCSEs at grade C, or grade 4, or above, including English.

UCAS Tariff

96

UCAS Tariff Points from a minimum of 2 A levels (or equivalent).

About this course


Course option

3years

Full-time | 2024

Subjects

Criminal justice

Criminology

**Prepare for an exciting and rewarding career in the police, or wider criminal justice sector, by studying for our hands-on Policing and Criminal Justice degree in Chelmsford.**

Whether you want to work for the police, prison service, security industry, local government or elsewhere in the criminal justice sector, our course will give you a deep understanding of the issues and policies involved in modern policing and rehabilitation.

You’ll have the opportunity to gain first-hand experience of the police or another service of interest on our work-based learning module. It gives you an insight into working cultures and practices as well as a head start in your chosen career.

Study in Chelmsford – the home of our Policing Institute for the Eastern Region (PIER) – and take your first step to a rewarding career in the criminal justice sector.

As a BSc (Hons) Policing and Criminal Justice student at ARU, you’ll develop your knowledge and skills by studying real-life cases and academic research, and taking part in interactive learning.

You’ll debate the most pressing issues facing police forces today, including sexual offences, fraud investigation, counter-terrorism initiatives and cultural diversity. You can also examine the trial process, and practice presenting evidence in front of a judge and jury, in our own on-campus mock courtroom.

We’ll help you work towards your career goals from day one. Our modules, trips, simulations, guest lectures, and work experience opportunities with local police forces and criminal justice practitioners will help you discover where your interests lie and build valuable skills and connections. You’ll also boost your CV as you develop your leadership, interpersonal communication and presentation skills.

Once you’ve graduated, you can continue to develop your skills on one of our Masters degrees, such as MA Criminology or MA Contemporary Policing.

**Hands-on learning**

All our BSc (Hons) Policing and Criminal Justice students have the opportunity to:
- go on field trips in the UK and overseas

- practise your skills in our mock courtrooms

- take part in workshops, research projects and other events with regional police forces and other professionals

- choose from a range of optional modules and pursue their own areas of interest.

**Careers**

Our graduates go on to work in the police force, probation, prisons and youth justice, as well as the Border Force, the military, security, charities and NGOs, local government, and the public sector more generally. Others are using their skills in areas such as policy, PR, communication and the media.

If you’re already working in the criminal justice sector, you could follow in the footsteps of former students who have progressed their careers to graduate level.

You could also develop a specialism or start a career in research by taking part in our academic shadowing scheme or Cambridgeshire County Council’s violence prevention analysis programmes.

Or you could choose to continue your studies on one of our Master’s degrees, such as MA Contemporary Policing or MA Criminology. Take advantage of our Alumni Scholarship and get 20% off your fees.

Whichever path you choose, you can be sure you’re graduating with the knowledge, skills and abilities that employers need. They help us review what we teach and how we teach it – and they offer hands-on, practical opportunities to learn through work-based projects, internships or placements.

Modules

Year 1 core modules: Introduction to Policing; Introduction to Contemporary Issues in Criminology; Criminal Justice in England and Wales; Policing Practice. Year 2 core modules: Making A Difference; Ruskin Module (15 credits); Evidence-Based Policing. Year 2 optional modules: Working in Criminal Justice; Policing Vulnerability; Cybercrime and Policing; Violence and Confrontation; Anglia Language Programme; Policing Ethics; Violence, Gender and Victimisation; Dark Web Policing and Control. Year 3 core modules: Youth, Crime and Aggression; Criminology and Policing in Policy and Practice. Year 3 optional modules: Undergraduate Major Project - Criminology; Undergraduate Major Project - Policing; Exploitation, Trafficking and Sexual Violence; Investigative Psychology; Neighbourhood Policing and Community Safety; Anglia Language Programme; Police and Counter-terrorism; Organised Crime. Modules are subject to change and availability.

Assessment methods

You’ll show your progress through a range of methods, including essays, presentations, case study reports, group work, research, and a major research project.

Tuition fees

Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:

Channel Islands
£9,250
per year
England
£9,250
per year
Northern Ireland
£9,250
per year
Republic of Ireland
£9,250
per year
Scotland
£9,250
per year
Wales
£9,250
per year

The Uni


Course location:

Chelmsford Campus

Department:

School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Read full university profile

What students say


We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.

76%
Criminology

How do students rate their degree experience?

The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

Social policy

Sorry, no information to show

This is usually because there were too few respondents in the data we receive to be able to provide results about the subject at this university.


Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

90%
UK students
10%
International students
29%
Male students
71%
Female students
79%
2:1 or above
14%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

B
D
B

Sociology

Teaching and learning

76%
Staff make the subject interesting
84%
Staff are good at explaining things
81%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
69%
Opportunities to apply what I've learned

Assessment and feedback

Feedback on work has been timely
Feedback on work has been helpful
Staff are contactable when needed
Good advice available when making study choices

Resources and organisation

59%
Library resources
80%
IT resources
72%
Course specific equipment and facilities
63%
Course is well organised and has run smoothly

Student voice

Staff value students' opinions
Feel part of a community on my course

Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

94%
UK students
6%
International students
46%
Male students
54%
Female students
74%
2:1 or above
15%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

C
C
C

After graduation


The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

Social policy

What are graduates doing after six months?

This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.

£18,000
med
Average annual salary
93%
med
Employed or in further education

Top job areas of graduates

15%
Sales assistants and retail cashiers
11%
Childcare and related personal services
8%
Public services and other associate professionals

Just over 1,600 students graduated in social policy in 2015, which makes it one of the smaller social studies subjects. This is a popular subject at Masters level — 750 Masters in social policy were awarded last year - and so a lot of the more sought-after jobs in management and research tend to go to social policy graduates with postgraduate degrees. For those who leave university after their first degree, then jobs in social care (especially community and youth work) and education, the police, marketing and human resources and recruitment are popular — along with local government, although there are fewer of those jobs around than in the past. This degree is a bit less reliant on London for jobs than other similar subjects, so if you'd like to work outside the capital, it might be worth considering - although the jobs still tend to be in big cities.

Sociology

What are graduates doing after six months?

This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.

£17,000
med
Average annual salary
93%
low
Employed or in further education
41%
med
Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

20%
Childcare and related personal services
14%
Sales assistants and retail cashiers
9%
Public services and other associate professionals

We have quite a lot of sociology graduates, although numbers fell last year. But graduates still do pretty well. Most sociology graduates go straight into work when they complete their degrees, and a lot of graduates go into jobs in social professions such as recruitment, education, community and youth work, and housing. An important option for a sociology graduate is social work - and we're short of people willing to take this challenging but rewarding career. Sociology is a flexible degree and you can find graduates from the subject in pretty much every reasonable job — obviously, you don't find many doctors or engineers, but you do find them in finance, the media, healthcare, marketing and even IT. Sociology graduates taking further study often branch out into other qualifications, like teaching, law, psychology, HR and even maths, so don’t think a sociology degree restricts you to just one set of options.

What about your long term prospects?

Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.

Social policy

The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.

£18k

£18k

£22k

£22k

£25k

£25k

Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.

Sociology

The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.

£18k

£18k

£22k

£22k

£25k

£25k

Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.

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This is the percentage of applicants to this course who received an offer last year, through Ucas.

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This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.

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Course location and department:

This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.

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Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):

We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.

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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).

This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.

You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

Post-six month graduation stats:

This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.

It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

Graduate field commentary:

The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show

Have a question about this info? Learn more here

The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?

Have a question about this info? Learn more here