Designing a curriculum for criminal justice

Peter Handley and Brian Mitchell, University of Wolverhampton

Presents the curriculum design for a degree in criminal justice, offered jointly by the School of Humanities and Social Science and School of Legal Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, explaining the rationale of the programme and its aims and outcomes.

Academic rationale

In developing the programme it has been the intention of the two contributing schools to achieve a number of goals:

• To utilise the expertise that exists within each school in the areas of criminal justice. Both schools, for instance, already offer modules in the area of criminology but do so in isolation from one another. The programme is intended to maximise this expertise by focusing its deployment on a negotiated set of award outcomes on which the criminal justice programme is based.
• To facilitate the development of links between the ‘black letter’ study of law within the School of Legal Studies and the theoretical and applied study of law within the School of Humanities and Social Science. Law and Sociology have in this university not been academic disciplines that have worked together closely. This is in spite of the obvious synergy that could be generated by them doing so. The programme is intended to rectify this omission and generate an interest in an area of shared work which will benefit both schools in terms of academic development and student recruitment.
• To stimulate cross-school and collaborative staff development and research in the area of criminal justice.
• To provide a platform for the future development of professional training courses and postgraduate work in the field of criminal justice. As part of the research carried out into the viability of the programme a study was made of the academic portfolio of Edith Cowan University in Western Australia. This university offers a range of postgraduate and professional training programmes in the area of criminal justice. One such programme is an MBA in Justice Administration, which runs alongside a number of short courses offered to the private security industry.

Market rationale

• To diversify the award portfolios of the contributing subjects of sociology and law. Undergraduate programmes within the School of Legal Studies remain primarily focused on the LLB and on students wishing to obtain a qualifying law degree as the first stage in a process leading to them qualifying as a barrister or solicitor. In recent years the School of Legal Studies has sought to diversify its undergraduate portfolio, in recognition of the fact that changes in the demand by the legal profession for such students, as recognised by the ACLEC Committee, is in decline. The criminal justice programme is another facet of this diversification. It similarly constitutes a strengthening of activity for the sociology subject area, building on existing routes in sociology and social policy.
• The number of individuals employed in the area of criminal justice exceeds that employed as barristers and solicitors. This group, which consists of a wide range of professionals (police officers, prison officers, probation officers, court clerks, administrative staff in courts, prisons, and police stations, civil servants within the Home Office, employees of private security firms etc), are not directly served by any of the existing undergraduate programmes of the university. The programme in criminal justice seeks to meet the needs of individuals wishing to enter these areas of employment.
• It is also hoped that the programme will attract a number of students who are not currently catered for by the university, in particular those who work within the area of criminal justice and who wish to either update their skills and knowledge, and/or to enhance their opportunities for career enhancement. At present the university does not offer a programme specifically focused on their professional interests, and it is intended that the criminal justice programme will do this.
• Existing modules within the areas of law and sociology which focus on the area of criminology are extremely popular, and the programme builds on this fact. It is intended that the validation of the programme will open up the movement of students between law and humanities modules, thereby feeding the cross fertilisation of ideas within these areas and enhancing student choice.
• A number of institutions of higher education within the West Midlands offer programmes in the area of criminal justice. The absence of such a programme from the portfolio of the university, given the expertise that exists within the two contributing subject areas, constitutes a serious deficiency at a time of increased competition for undergraduate students.
• Two local providers of further education, Bilston Community College and Matthew Boulton College, both offer Access programmes with a criminal justice stream for students wishing to enter higher education. At present the university does not offer an undergraduate programme which directly matches these streams. The programme is specifically intended to do so.

The programme can, therefore, in general terms be seen as meeting the university’s commitment to maintaining access and meeting the needs of local, community and regional users.

Relationship with existing portfolio

The programme draws on existing modules within the School of Humanities and Social Science and School of Legal Studies which are already in validation or subject to validation. One further option modules has been added (contemporary issues in criminology) and four core modules, two at Level 1 (introduction to criminal justice and introduction to criminology), and two at Level 2 (theories of crime and theories of punishment and sentencing). The existing modules are currently available to students across the university and in particular contribute to awards in law, politics and sociology. This will continue to be the case if the programme in criminal justice is validated. The new modules will also be available on a cross-university basis to any student who can meet the prerequisites attached to each module. Contributing modules will remain in the ownership of the subject area responsible for their management. It is not proposed at this stage in the development of the programme to create a distinct subject area of criminal justice.

Aims and outcomes of the award

Utilising as it does the modules of two schools, the members of the planning team were particularly concerned to ensure that the modules were underpinned by a coherent set of outcomes defining the programme of study to be undertaken by students. This was thought to be of particular importance given that a significant number of the contributing modules were originally intended for use in programmes other than criminal justice. The planning team considered it essential that the modules should not just be superficially cognate, but that they should have a coherence that would be apparent not just to the validating panel and students on the programme but also provide a underlying credo for the introduction and development of the programme.

To this end the planning team devised a set of award outcomes. The development of award outcomes, while not a mandatory feature of cross-subject proposals, was for the above reasons thought to be essential. This was particularly important given the fact that the modules do not share common generic academic outcomes, and that modules owned by the School of Humanities and Social Science do not in fact utilise generic academic outcomes. The award outcomes have been drafted in terms of the knowledge and skills students following the criminal justice programme will be expected to be competent in at its completion.

Students will be expected to have:

• knowledge of the origins and development of the criminal justice system in England and Wales
• knowledge and understanding of the principles and philosophies underpinning the criminal justice system
• knowledge of the legal frameworks and the principles of law that shape the operation of the criminal justice system
• the ability to understand and apply theoretical perspectives to analysing issues and problems in criminal justice
• a critical understanding of issues and problems in the operation of the criminal justice system
• critical engagement with issues of equal opportunities in the sphere of criminal justice

These outcomes were the subject of vigorous and lengthy debate amongst the members of the planning team and reflected the wish of all to create a programme that would provide not just an understanding of the mechanics of criminal justice, but a critical and theoretical appreciation of its impact on those engaged and enmeshed by it. Of particular importance was the final outcome relating to equal opportunities. All members of the team considered that issues relating to the differential worth and treatment of ethnic and social groups by individuals and institutions forming part of the machine of criminal justice was central to an understanding of its operation.

Last Modified: 12 July 2010