Course outline – Level 3 Diploma in Criminology WJEC

(Course code: 4543QD)

Why Study Criminology?

In brief, the study of Criminology deals primarily with crime and punishment and our understanding of crime in the social context. Criminology helps understand the mindset of criminals, why they commit crimes, and the factors that affect them. This helps in the proper allocation of resources to control crime.

Course Structure:

The Diploma in Criminology is equivalent to one A’ Level and  the content has been designed to allow learners to gain an understanding of criminology and its relevance to many job roles within the criminal justice sector, social and probation work and sociology and psychology.

Student will undertake 4 units 2 of which are assessed though linear exams and 2 of which are assess through controlled assessment.

In year 12 students will study unit 1 and 2 parallel to one another, supported by a different teacher for each unit. Unit 1 is a coursework based unit and is called ‘changing awareness of crime’. Within this unit students will learn what the major types of crimes are, how they are often underreported and how we can improve awareness of these types of crime. Students will complete the unit by planning and creating a campaign to make people more aware of a crime which is identified in the specially created assignment brief. Students also study alongside this, unit 2 called ‘Criminological theories’, which explains and defines criminal activity. This serves to underpin all the knowledge they learn in unit 2.

In year 13 students will study the remaining two units, unit 3, called ‘from crime scene to court room’, where learners will need to examine and review information involving the justice of verdicts in criminal cases. This again will be synoptically underpinned by knowledge gain in unit 4, called ‘crime and punishment’, the purpose of this unit is for learners to develop skills in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the process of social control in delivering policy in practice.

Units Details;

Careers and Destinations:

Possible career options:

Possible degree options:

Sociology provides an excellent starting point for any social science degree from Economics, Psychology, and Politics to Criminology and Philosophy. You do not need to have an A level in Sociology to take Sociology at university, though it helps.

Sociology A level complements a wide range of other A level subjects, though don’t forget that the top universities expect you to be taking a ‘challenging’ combination of A levels, which means that you might be at a disadvantage if you do not include at least one ‘challenging’ subject in your programme, or if you also take A levels with a similar outlook (so perhaps best not to combine Sociology with Psychology and Politics A levels unless that’s really essential to you).

However, many students choose degrees which combine Sociology with Psychology as the two subjects complement one another. While Sociology studies the influences society has upon individual behaviour, Psychology examines the impact of the individual mind.

Recent destinations of our students within this subject include;

*We will have our first criminology graduates at TGAK in the summer of 2021