CRIME & OFFENDING - 2025/6

Module Overview

This module focuses on the nature and extent of crime and offending.  It examines the different approaches to measuring crime and offending (police recorded crime, victim surveys, ‘known’ offending and self report studies).  It considers the main factors associated with crime and offending and highlights the importance of understanding the nature and patterns of crime in planning strategies and interventions. Within the topic, we cover issues including the digital capacities of control, particularly associated with the role of technology in offending and crime prevention. These analyses are further situated in international contexts from global and cultural capabilities perspectives, especially in encouraging thinking outside of Anglo-centric contexts. Practice examples are offered throughout the module, to understand ways of working with offenders and in response to offending in accordance with employability, as well as ways of utilizing resources to support offenders from a resourcefulness and resilience perspective.

Module provider

Sociology

Module Leader

BRUNTON-SMITH Ian (Sociology)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 7

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 2

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None

Module content

1.      Introduction to the course, assessment requirements and the measurement of crime and offending

2.      Crime data and victimization

3.      Risks of crime

4.      Offender pathways 1

5.      Offender pathways 2

6.      International comparisons

7.      Technology and crime

8.      Social contexts and crime

9.      Policy making

10.    Review and assessment

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

N/A

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate:

 

• A systematic understanding of the ways in which different types of crime and offending can be understood in practice, especially in relation to data.

 

• An advanced ability to make connections and distinctions between offending, crime and responses to crime.

 

• A critical understanding of the ways theories intersect with the ways in which offending is understood in different contexts.

 

Summative Assessment:

This will be assessed via two assignments:

 

Essay 1 – 50% - with orientation towards data analysis examples.

 

Essay 2 – 50% - with orientation towards practical topical examples in crime and offending.

 

Formative assessment and feedback:

 

Feedback in class on regular student inputs

 

Written feedback on individual assignment for assessment one will shape the preparation of the second and cohort feedback from the overall findings of the assessment will be offered in class and on SurreyLearn to all to further support preparation for the final assessment.

 

Students will be given opportunities to discuss a brief plan of their research paper with the module convener which is optional, but encouraged.

Module aims

• Assess the ways in which crime is measures and some of the methodological challenges and solutions to these
• Have a critical understanding of how crime and criminal justice responses operate
• Examine how we can think about crime and offending through an evidence-based approach, including effective ways of reducing crime

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to reflect the programme’s key learning and teaching aims by:

Engendering knowledge of key theoretical conceptualisations and understanding of crime and offending.

Promoting knowledge of the empirical basis for our understanding of the relationship between crime, offending and wider aspects of social life

Developing transferable skills that that relate to employability in the field of crime and justice and help prepare students for PhD study

 

The learning and teaching methods include:

Lectures

Seminars

Class exercises

Class discussions

Independent study

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: SOCM019

Other information

The Department of Sociology is committed to developing graduates with strengths in Employability, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability, and Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module is designed to allow students to develop knowledge, skills, and capabilities in all these areas, as highlighted throughout this module descriptor. A summary of how this is achieved for each of the five key pillars is provided below:

Employability – Many students that complete the module go onto work in the justice system, including within research and analytics. The module engages closely with many of the practical issues faced when working in organisations, helping provide students with cutting-edge understandings of crime and offending in different contexts.

Digital Capabilities – We engage academically with the issue of digital capacities during the content of the module, including a critical assessment of how these technologies may provide barriers and opportunities to shape crime. We utilize classroom technologies, such as Padlet and Polleverywhere to help engage students in discussions.

Global and Cultural Capabilities – We look carefully at whether specific crime responses, patterns of crime and crime types can be understood internationally. This also encompasses critical assessment of the limits of some theories and interventions to cross international borders to effectively address crime issues.

Sustainability – Much of what happens in criminal justice is contested, with negative consequences for people, whether victims, offenders or society at large. Criminal justice responses are expensive and not always cost effective. Alternative means of intervention are assessed where relevant to allow students to recognize best practice in the field.

Resourcefulness and Resilience – Students will have the chance to engage critically in understanding different responses to crime, issues with crime data, and analytic methods to assess crime. This requires the utilization of resourcefulness skills and resilience, in helping recognize that challenges that happen when working with data, and finding suitable solutions to some of these analytic pitfalls.  

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2025/6 academic year.