Master of Arts - Sociology and Criminology

There can be no crime without society. Combining the specialist study of criminology with a broad approach to sociological questions, this University of Essex course emboldens students to study crime, criminals, and criminal justice within wider social contexts. Understanding society is key to understand every other phenomenon within it, including crime.

Criminologists and sociologists engage with some of the most pressing issues, decisions and dilemmas facing societies today. In this Essex course students explore the nature of crime, criminal justice and punishment within wider social contexts. Students will also explore how society deals with the past and the present, with issues such as colonialism and post-colonialism and the future of human rights as the backbone of every analysis. Guided by Essex's expert staff who specialize in social theory, colonial history, terrorism, organized crime, prisons, drug abuse, and crime in the media, students explore how criminal activity interlinks with age, gender, and social concepts such as power and identity. Students will study areas including: social divisions, inequality, the nature of work and commercial culture; culture identity and subjectivity; gender and sexuality; media and criminology; globalization and various forms of crime; security and the state; new criminological theory. Students explore some of the most important and significant debates in contemporary social theory, learning to think analytically about theoretical questions. They discover the importance of social theory in developing a politically engaged understanding of concepts such as post-structuralism, feminism and actor-network theory. This course provides excellent preparation for further academic study, and many of Essex's postgraduates go on to successful academic careers, both in the UK and overseas. Others have established careers in non-governmental organizations, local authorities, specialist think tanks, government departments, charities, media production, and research organizations.