Overview

Director: Professor Roger Matthews
Telephone: 01227 827613
Email: r.a.matthews@kent.ac.uk

The University of Kent is proud to offer a competitive and engaging MA in Criminology that combines a core programme of criminological theory and research methods with a series of exciting optional modules encompassing the topical criminological issues of the day.
                         
While the increasing popularity of Criminology as a subject discipline has seen an expansion of MA programmes in this area, there are many reasons to choose to study at Kent.

• Study takes place within the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR), a department with an extremely strong research culture that was rated equal fourth in the national 2008 Research and Assessment exercise.
• The Masters was founded by the world-famous Criminologist, Professor Jock Young, who continues to maintain a close association with the programme, and is primarily taught by internationally recognised academics and researchers.
• The content of the programme remains at the cutting edge of current Criminological debate with a strong emphasis on the cultural context of crime.
• Kent students are offered the unique opportunity to add an international dimension to their criminological study by participating in the Common Studies Sessions in Critical Criminology. This event provides students and staff the opportunity to exchange ideas and deliver papers on topics relating to critical, cultural and international criminology at a bi-annual conference run in collaboration with Kent University’s international criminology partners from universities in The Netherlands, the United States, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, and Greece.
• We also offer an MA in Criminology with a Semester Aboard at one of our partner universities in the above countries.
• For those interested in continuing their postgraduate study, SSPSSR has a strong reputation for continued study towards a criminology doctorate.

Students may embark upon their studies over either a one year full time programme or a two year part time programme.  At the heart of the MA Criminology are two core courses dealing with advanced criminological theory and advanced research methods.  These are complemented by the opportunity to pursue either a research or library-based Criminological dissertation.  Finally, students are free to choose from a wide range of optional modules, including: Cultural criminology; Young People, Crime and Place; Terrorism and Modern Society; Gender, Crime and Punishment; Crime Prevention and Community Justice; The Sociology of Violence; Critical Criminology; Penology; and Policing.

Still unsure if this is for you?

Prospective students may also be interested in the new Terrorism and SecurityMA offered by the University of Kent and directed by Dr. Keith Hayward.

Contributors

Criminology post-graduate students not only maintain close contact with the University of Kent Criminology teaching team, but are privileged to be taught by some of the leading Criminologists and Sociologists from the wider department and from outside the University itself.

Professor Jock Young
Professor Young is a world-famous Criminologist, who founded the Criminology MA at the University of Kent and continues to hold a strong association with the programme, teaching the core Theoretical Criminology module in autumn term.  His career has been long and diverse beginning with an ethnographic study of drug use, encompassing the now well established criminological theory Left-Realism, and currently focusing on the exciting new area of cultural criminology.   He makes regular visits to the University of Kent and remains an active member of the department.  He is also a regular participant in the Common Studies Programme. 

Professor Roger Matthews
A leading penologist and criminological theoretician, Professor Matthews joined the Kent criminology team in September 2011. His research interests include prisons, punishment, armed robbery, and crime prevention. He is also one of the country’s leading experts on the sociology and policing of prostitution. He currently convenes the new MA module Crime Prevention and Community Justice.

Professor Chris Hale
Professor Chris Hale is one Europe's leading quantitative criminologists. He is also a leading expert on fear of crime and crime and social exclusion. Chris was instrumental in founding the MA in criminology and is currently the Head of School for SSPSSR.

Professor Keith Hayward
A leading proponent of cultural criminology, Professor Hayward is the Director of the MA programme. He also convenes the module Terrorism and Modern Society and delivers a suite of lectures on the Cultural Criminology module. His wider research interests also include youth crime, popular culture, social theory, and urban crime.  Dr Hayward is also the co-Director of a new MA in Terrorism and Security which prospective students may be interested in.

Dr Kate O’Brien
Dr O’Brien leads the popular Young people, Crime, and Place MA module which reflects her strong research interests in the fields of the night-time economy, drug markets and bouncers and private policing.

Dr Jennifer Fleetwood
Dr Fleetwood convenes the MA module Gender, Crime and Punishment: International Perspectives, a course that reflects her research interests in feminist theory; women in the drugs trade and organised crime; ethnographic, qualitative and narrative methods. 

Dr Phil Carney
Dr Carney co-ordinates the MA Criminology (with a Semester Abroad) and also oversees the organisation of the Common Studies Sessions.  In addition to these duties he runs the Critical Criminology module.  His wider research interests include the surveillance society, photographic depiction and identification and contemporary French social theory.

Dr Jonathan Ilan
Dr Ilan was recruited to University of Kent in 2009 and has taken over the organisation of the MA module Cultural Criminology.  His research interests also include ethnography; youth crime, justice and policing, and urban sociology.

Dr Caroline Chatwin
Dr Chatwin provides some lectures on the MA and is available for dissertation supervision, particularly in the following areas: European drug policy; young people and victimisation; the normalisation of drug use.

Visiting Distinguished Professors

The full-time criminology team is augmented by a series of Distinguished Visiting Professors, including:

Professor Jeff Ferrell, Texas Christian University, USA - the world's leading cultural criminologist
Professor Pat Carlen - internationally-renowned prison scholar and Editor in Chief of the British Journal of Criminology
Professor Marian Fitzgerald - acknowledge expert on race and crime and the policing of minorities. Marian is also one of the country's leading media commentators on crime.
Professor Stuart Henry, San Diego State University, USA - former Kent graduate and now Head of School at SDSU, Stuart is a leading theoretical criminologist and deviancy scholar; author or editor of over 25 books, he is most known for his theory of constitutive criminology
Professor Todd Clear, Rutgers University, USA - one of America's leading criminologists, Todd's recent work focuses on the impact of mass incarceration at the community level.

Entry Requirements

A good honours degree in a relevant subject. Applicants with equivalent vocational qualifications and/or relevant work experience will be considered individually. The University requires all non-native speakers of English to produce evidence of proficiency in written and spoken English. We require a minimum score in one of the following:

• 6.5 in International English Language Test (IELTS)
• 600 in paper-based or 250 computer-based Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)
• 'B' in the Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in English

'A' in the Cambridge Advanced Certificate in English