Criminology with Psychology
Entry requirements
A level
112-120 points from 3 A levels.
112-122 Tariff points from the Access to HE Diploma.
Cambridge Pre-U score of 54-56.
GCSE/National 4/National 5
3 GCSEs at grade C or above to include English and Mathematics/3 GCSEs at grade 4 or above to include English and Mathematics.
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
29 points from the IB Diploma. 655/754 at Higher Level - 29 points from the IB Diploma. 664 at Higher Level.
Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)
H3,H3,H3,H3,H4-H3,H3,H3,H3,H3
Acceptable when combined with other qualifications.
Acceptable when combined with other qualifications.
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
112-120 Tariff points.
T Level
UCAS Tariff
112-120 points from 3 A levels, or equivalent.
112-120 points from the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate including 2 A levels, plus the Advanced Skills Challenge Certificate.
About this course
This course has alternative study modes. Contact the university to find out how the information below might vary.
**This is a Connected Degree**
Portsmouth is the only University in the UK with the flexibility to choose when to do an optional paid placement or self-employed year. Either take a placement in your third year, or finish your studies first and complete a placement in your fourth year. You can decide if and when to take a placement after you've started your course.
**Overview**
When you work with criminals and their victims, the ability to understand people's emotions, thoughts and actions is vital. This combined BSc (Hons) Criminology with Psychology degree gives you a deep understanding of criminal behaviour, for a competitive edge in your career.
You'll explore why people commit crimes, the psychological fallout, and how rehabilitation works. Studying in one of the UK's largest criminology departments, your diverse options will also include specialist subjects such as forensic psychology.
Course highlights
- Tailor your degree for a career path that fits your ambitions – from policing to probation, prisons to rehabilitation
- Be taught by experts, including forensic psychologists and criminologists, whose ground-breaking research keeps your modules relevant and eye-opening
- Develop practical skills, such as lie detection and effective interviewing, in our Forensic Interviewing Suite, founded by a researcher who works with emergency services to develop better ways of interviewing witnesses
- Explore how virtual reality can make a difference to understanding criminal behaviour, inspired by innovative VR research at the University of Portsmouth
- Enjoy a sense of community with your peers, on course-specific socials and field trips – recent examples include visits to courtrooms and Bethlem Museum of the Mind, on the grounds of the infamous 'Bedlam' Hospital
- If you’re interested in policing, probation work or community justice, you can choose modules that give you pre-entry qualifications for a career in those fields
- Make the most of our links with agencies such as youth offender teams, the probation service and prisons, to build your network of potential employers
**Careers and opportunities**
By studying aspects of two different but related disciplines – psychology and criminology – you’ll open yourself to a wide range of career options. You’ll be a natural fit for roles relating to work with offenders or victims of crime. Both are areas where there will likely always be a demand for skilled professionals.
The psychology aspects of your studies will broaden your career options. Your understanding of the human mind and behaviour could lead you to specialist jobs, such as forensic psychology (with further training). Knowledge of psychology can also be an asset in a diverse range of roles outside of criminal justice - from market research to human resources. With transferable skills in communications, critical thinking and analysis on your CV, you’ll be a very employable graduate.
What areas can you work in with a criminology with psychology degree?
Organisations you could work for include:
- the police force
- the probation service
- the prison service
- academic research
- victim and offender support charities
What jobs can you do with a criminology with psychology degree?
Our graduates have gone on to jobs such as:
- investigative data analyst
- police officer
- defence and security analyst
- probation officer
- counter fraud intelligence analyst
- youth offending support officer
- offender case administrator
Our Careers and Employability service can help you find a job that puts your skills to work in the field. You'll also get support for up to 5 years after you leave the University.
Modules
Year 1
Core modules in this year include:
- Criminal Justice
- Essential Skills for Criminologists
- Psychology for Criminologists
- Social Psychology
- Understanding Criminology
There are no optional modules in this year.
Year 2
Core modules in this year include:
- Developmental Psychology
- Psychology and Criminal Justice
- Questioning Criminology
- Researching Criminology
Optional modules in this year currently include:
- Crimes of the Powerful
- Empire and its Afterlives in Britain, Europe and Africa
- Engaged Citizenship in Humanities and Social Sciences
- Fundamentals of Forensic Investigation
- Gang Crime
- Global Environmental Justice
- Global Security
- Hate Crime
- Introduction To Teaching
- Intercultural Perspectives on Communication
- Key Issues in Criminal Justice
- Marketing and Communication
- Modern Language (Institution-wide Language Programme)
- Modernity and Globalisation
- Nationalism and Migration: Chaos, Crisis and the Everyday
- News, Discourse and Media
- Penology and Prison
- Policing and Society
- Principles of Economic Crime Investigation
- Professional Experience
- Psychology and Security
- Space, Place and Being
- Transitional Justice and Human Rights
- Underworlds: Crime, Deviance and Punishment in Britain, 1500–1900
- Victims of Crime: Key Players in Criminal Justice
- Wildlife Crime: Threats and Response
- Youth Crime, Youth Justice
Placement year (optional)
On this course, you can do an optional work placement year between your 2nd and 3rd years to get valuable experience working in industry. We’ll help you secure a work placement that fits your situation and ambitions. You’ll get mentoring and support throughout the year.
Year 3
Core modules in this year includes:
- Abnormal Psychology
- Dissertation / Major Project (Criminology)
- Psychology of Criminal Conduct
Optional modules in this year currently include:
- Black Criminology, Race and the Criminal Justice System
- Contemporary Terrorism and the Global Response
- Crime and New Technologies: Theory and Practice
- Cyberpsychology
- Dangerous Offenders and Public Protection
- Economic Crime and Fraud Examination
- Forensic Psychology: Investigation
- Gender and Crime
- Green Crime and Environmental Justice
- Information Security Management
- Intelligence Analysis
- Introduction To Teaching
- Miscarriages of Justice
- Money Laundering and Compliance
- Policing: Communities, Intelligence and Information
- Policing: Law, Policy and Practice
- Political Extremism
- Professional Development: Recruiters and Candidates
- Professional Experience
- Treatment and Rehabilitation of Offenders
- True Crime: The Making of a Genre
We use the best and most current research and professional practice alongside feedback from our students to make sure course content is relevant to your future career or further studies.
Therefore, some course content may change over time to reflect changes in the discipline or industry and some optional modules may not run every year. If a module doesn’t run, we’ll let you know as soon as possible and help you choose an alternative module.
Assessment methods
You’ll be assessed through:
coursework
examinations
presentations
group projects
a dissertation
You’ll be able to test your skills and knowledge informally before you do assessments that count towards your final mark.
You can get feedback on all practice and formal assessments so you can improve in the future.
The way you’re assessed may depend on the modules you select. As a guide, students on this course last year were typically assessed as follows:
Year 1 students: 18% by written exams, 7% by practical exams and 75% by coursework
Year 2 students: 17% by written exams and 83% by coursework
Year 3 students: 33% by written exams, 8% by practical exams and 59% by coursework
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
The Uni
University of Portsmouth
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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.
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.
Sociology
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Psychology (non-specific)
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
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.
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.
Top job areas of graduates
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.
Psychology (non-specific)
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.
Top job areas of graduates
20 years ago, this was a specialist degree for would-be psychologists but now it is the model of a modern, flexible degree subject. One of the UK's fastest-growing subject at degree level, and the second most popular subject overall (it recently overtook business studies), one in 23 of all graduates last year had psychology degrees. As you'd expect with figures like that, jobs in psychology itself are incredibly competitive, so to stand a chance of securing one, you need to get a postgraduate qualification (probably a doctorate in most fields, especially clinical psychology) and some relevant work experience. But even though there are so many psychology graduates — far more than there are jobs in psychology, and over 13,800 in total last year — this degree has a lower unemployment rate than average because its grads are so flexible and well-regarded by business and other industries across the economy. Everywhere there are good jobs in the UK economy, you'll find psychology graduates - and it's hardly surprising as the course helps you gain a mix of good people skills and excellent number and data handling skills. A psychology degree ticks most employers' boxes — but we'd suggest you don't drop your maths modules.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
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.
£25k
£25k
£29k
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.
Psychology (non-specific)
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£19k
£25k
£27k
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.
Explore these similar courses...
This is what the university has told Ucas about the criteria they expect applicants to satisfy; some may be compulsory, others may be preferable.
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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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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?
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