It is also relevant to note that Criminology also exists as an HND subject in, for example, Blackburn College.  Further information as to the growth of the discipline may be found in Section V.

On behalf of the Society, the Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics,

(C-SAP) contacted 53 institutions offering criminology courses with a request for information about trends in student numbers. 23 of these institutions replied.  The results are presented in Table 1 below.

Table 1

Direction of change.	Number of institutions.
Up	6
Stable	7
Down	1
No trend data as new course starts 2004	1
Annual Estimates of 2004 figures	8
Total	23

Even reading these data with due caution, because of the high non response rate, it does appear that the trend in student registrations for degrees or part degrees is up.  Even the case interpreted here as having a downward trend reported more students in 2003/4 than in 2002/3, although a reduced number in 2004/5 was anticipated. This suggests instability rather than decline.

Distinctiveness.

We have approached the question of the conceptual unity of the discipline both empirically and theoretically.  Our empirical data were supplied by C-SAP, and were based upon programme specifications and data derived from university websites.  The Society received data from thirty-three institutions from this source.  A full list of respondents appears in Appendix 2.  Data derived from seven of the institutions had to be discarded, usually because the institution offered only postgraduate courses.  One further institution gave names of such generality to its courses that they could not be classified. We have analysed the content of single and joint honours courses separately.  Multiple combinations have not been included, and joint courses have been included only for institutions which do not offer a single Honours programme.  A limitation of these data is that not all responding institutions gave full details of their optional courses in the information packs sent.  The quantitative analysis for optional courses must therefore be read as indicative of the subject matter only.  The number of institutions recorded as delivering a course on a particular subject is not an exact representation.  [Additional programme specifications have since been voluntarily submitted, and more are being sought from readers of this draft proposal.  The analysis will not be re-worked until May, when the draft document will be withdrawn for amendment prior to submission.]

 

Table 2

Data base for content analysis.

Single honours	Joint honours	Not applicable [Postgraduate or combined honours only]	Total
16	11	6	33

Single Honours Criminology.

Thirteen of the sixteen single honours programmes analysed provided sufficient data for a content analysis to be carried out.   In addition to introductory courses, all thirteen of the single honours programmes offered courses (usually required) on the criminal justice system / crime and justice and – more surprisingly – on policing.  Courses on research methods were offered by twelve (12) programmes, courses on theory by ten (10), and courses on punishment, penal practice, or penology by ten (10).  Specialised courses on counting crime or on evaluation were offered on some courses in addition to more general methods courses.  The following topics were each offered on nine of the thirteen courses analysed: youth offending/young people and crime; victim related courses; crime and the media.  Other topics occurring more than twice included women or gender and crime, historical approaches, comparative or international approaches, and criminal law. This last topic, when offered, was usually a required course.

Joint honours degrees: criminology 50%

All but one of the joint honours courses offered one or more courses on the criminal justice system or the criminal courts (10 of 11). Leaving aside the introductory courses, the other well represented subjects were theory (6 of 11) and research methods (5 of 11).  This almost certainly underestimates the theory content, but courses with very general titles such as “Crime and Society” have been left out of this analysis.  Courses on penology/punishment/penal practice were offered in five institutions.  Courses on crime and gender, victimisation and/or fear, and crime prevention were each identified in three of the curriculum statements.  Policing, one of the most popular courses in the single honours programmes, appeared in only two of the joint programmes in our (non random) sample.

The evidence indicates that the conceptual framework in common lies in criminological theory, offered by name in 10 of the thirteen single honours courses and in 6 of the 11 joint degree programmes. The substantive core emerges strongly as analysis of the criminal justice system in both single and joint honours degrees.  Analysis of the organisation and practice of policing has a central place in single honours courses, but not in joint programmes (2 of 11).  Theories of penality and punishment are also less frequently found in the joint offerings (5 of 11).   The strong presence of research training on the single honours programmes indicates that the subject is seen as empirically grounded; it also appears in 5 of 11 criminology contributions to joint honours degrees.

What must also be recorded is that the range of specialist courses is immense; drug related crime, terrorism, child abuse, juvenile justice, violence in many guises, corporate and environmental crime, ethnicity and offending/victimisation, specific areas of policy making, forensic psychology: the list is potentially infinite.  It reflects the intellectual liveliness of the discipline, the power of its theories, and the emergent versatility of its methods.

The defining core of criminology as revealed in current curricula.

The dramatis personae of criminology have changed.  Victims, police officers, and ‘institutionalised’ injustices stand where once the offender alone took centre stage.  With the exception of young people and, in a few cases, perpetrators of corporate crimes, crimes of the powerful, and state crimes, offenders have very largely disappeared from these curriculum statements.  Since the 1960s the focus of the discipline has shifted quite dramatically to processes of criminalisation. This has enabled the discipline to target its analyses of offenders in terms of its own emergent theories, and in this regard it is interesting to record the appearance of human rights courses in two curricula, and of a course on genocide in another.  The discipline has achieved autonomy.  Offenders have not disappeared: they have been theorised into different spaces.

Recently developed concerns in the discipline bring victims and offenders together in a context where the safety of citizens is a recognised political good.  This re-situates traditional concerns about explanations for criminality or “the causes of crime”.  Community safety courses address crime control, prevention, and environmental issues as well as fear of crime.  A similar connection between victim and offender, from a different theoretical perspective, is offered by academic analyses of, and sometimes participation in, restorative justice programmes.  In all of these developments the longstanding concern of the discipline with how to explain and control conventional offending persists, albeit in a new theoretical context.

This movement to autonomy from the pre-given concerns of policy makers has had two important consequences.  The first, paradoxically, is more rather than fewer interdisciplinary connections.  Criminologists meet gender studies specialists in concerns about gendered patterns of victimisation, offending, and criminal justice processing; criminologists as much as, and sometimes in conjunction with, lawyers explore human rights abuses; the criminological concern with ethnicity is shared with colleagues in cultural studies, management studies, and, indeed, across the social sciences.  The paradox is that having a distinct theoretical focus enables inter-disciplinary work without loss of disciplinary identity.

The second consequence is that criminologists now set the direction of research within the discipline, continuing to respond to policy concerns but also raising new issues about, for example, the criminalisation of refugees, community involvement in restorative justice, or the (limited) accountability of international police networks, and the impact of these structures and practices at local levels.

This movement to autonomy started a decade later in the criminal justice and penal practice sub-field, but none the less conceptualising community safety to include environmental harms as well as street crime, exploring the culturally embedded practices of institutional racism, ageism and sexism, challenging the raced and gendered aspects of imprisonment, exploring the impact of managerialism on the probation service, querying the adequacy of accountability structures in restorative justice, challenging the historical constitution of the idea of the criminal, criminology brings a unique theoretical vision to its traditional and valuable relationships with social policy and psychology programmes. It emerges in this brief analysis of curriculum statements as theoretical, as critical, and as empirically grounded.

Research on policing began within the disciplines of sociology and history in the late 1960s, moving to criminology as the discipline became established.  Its growth has corresponded with a strong movement to professionalise policing in the UK, so that the intellectual trajectory has been from relatively autonomous research (which continues) to the identification of a place for theory and research in professional police education.

Criminology has a long theoretical tradition, many parts of which have provided specialised concepts which continue to shape the discipline: Becker’s key concept of  “deviance” is a case in point.  Even earlier, Edwin Sutherland provided the basis for theoretical self criticism by pointing out that theory can obscure as well as enlighten, that the theory (as well as the practice) of his day rendered the crimes of corporations invisible.  This history is constitutive of criminology as a discipline, what a lawyer would call “trite knowledge”, that which hardly needs to be spoken.

This unique theoretical tradition continues to be developed, as evidenced by the recent growth of interest in international networks, and the widespread use of concepts developed within the discipline of criminology such as “responsibilisation” (displacing responsibility for crime prevention onto communal organisations), “transgressive” criminology (which challenges established disciplinary boundaries) or “status offences” (reasons for legal sanctions against women or children for actions which would not be sanctioned for an adult male or, in some cases, any adult).  Another example is the  continuing development of the concept of state crime, from the active perpetration of harm to culpable failure to protect.

In terms of methodology, criminology, while deploying the full range of accepted social scientific methods, has also developed methods which are appropriate to its own objects of analysis.  The most familiar of these are the survey of self-reported crime and the crime victim survey.  The latter technique has been elaborated and supplemented to explore more complex harms such as violence against women or racist harassment and repeat victimisation.  Filming and CCTV cameras have also been used to construct both qualitative and quantitative criminological data, most usefully on the raced practices of private security personnel and on police treatment of suspects in custody.  These significant technical developments are supported by methodological and conceptual advances: concepts such as “occidentalism” and “glocalisation” increasingly re-shape both field work and analytic strategies.

The Society has circulated this document to the following organisations:

The British Sociological Association.

The Social Policy Association.

The Society of Legal Scholars.

The Socio-legal Studies Association.

The British Psychological Society.

The Political Studies Association.

The Academy of the Social Sciences.

3          The proposal is representative of the whole subject community.

 i)         The British Society of Criminology

The British Society of Criminology is both a registered charity and a registered company.  It is the only organisation representing professional criminologists in the United Kingdom.  As of 31^st August 2004 the Society had 783 members.  Of these 355 work in higher education as either teachers or full time researchers; a further 132 members currently work in the criminal justice system as practitioners, administrators, policy makers, or researchers; 160 of the members are full-time postgraduate research students; 136 members constitute a miscellaneous category of retired and other interested persons.  Within itself, therefore, the BSC represents both producers and users of the discipline of criminology.

The Society’s Constitution ensures that all categories of member are represented on its Advisory Council, and three Advisory Council members, from any category, serve as representatives on the Executive Committee.  The Executive Committee itself is elected by the membership.

Regional groups of the Society are active in the Midlands, London and the South East, Scotland, and Wales and the West Country. New or revived groups are in the process of development in Northern Ireland and in the north-west of England.

The Annual Conference of the Society is open to non-members, as are all other academic events such as one day conferences and training workshops. Finally, the BSC is a member of the Academy of Social Sciences, to which it from time to time nominates Members and Fellows.

Because of this open and democratic structure, the Society is in a strong position to understand and to represent the educational and professional needs of criminology.

ii)         Teachers of criminology.

In an effort to reach beyond its membership the Society posted an early draft of this document on its website and published it in its Newsletter, inviting comments from readers.

We have also distributed the document to Heads of all departments teaching single or joint honours criminology courses, with a request for their comments.  Where possible this feedback has been taken into account in this submission.

 iii)        Users of criminology.

Criminology has two main user groups: those who make use of its research, and those who employ its graduates.

Criminological research is used to inform policy in the Home Office, where the Home Office Research, Development, and Statistics Directorate uses criminological research methods to analyse the state of crime and the effectiveness of government policies. Criminological theory and theoretical debates have also been of relevance in this context, notably the debates between “zero tolerance” and the “broken windows” hypothesis versus a form of realism which incorporates over-enthusiastic (but under protective) policing into the list of criminogenic deprivations, including broken windows, to which the residents of deprived areas are vulnerable.  Policy has been affected, and more holistic approaches than zero tolerance are now widely advocated.  The importance of area specific crime figures has also been more widely appreciated as a result of these inputs.  A second example is that criminologists put social and domestic violence onto the policy agenda, and have spearheaded improved ways of conceptualising and counting these phenomena.

Apart from the Home Office, local authorities, police forces, the Probation Service, the youth service, the courts, human rights activists and academic scholars are all “consumers” of contemporary criminology.  Bodies representing these professions and concerns have been consulted as listed below. The academics have been consulted via their professional associations.

Suggestions needed.

The second user group for criminology consists of those who employ graduates in the field.  Inevitably there is an overlap between the employers and the policy makers identified above, but the two groups are not isomorphic.  Accordingly, and once again with the assistance of C-SAP, the Society has undertaken an analysis of the employment destinations of criminology graduates.

The Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) makes it clear that “there aren’t any national statistics specifically for first destinations of criminology graduates”, indicating that criminology and sociology have in the past been combined.   However, under the heading “Criminology: Jobs related to your degree” the following are listed:

• Probation Officer
• Forensic psychologist (prison and probation service)
• Legal services
• Social worker
• Social researcher
• Police officer
• Prison Governor

The site then goes on to list a wide range of careers “where a degree in criminology would be useful”, from lecturing in further education to charity fundraiser.

In general, the AGCAS site makes the case for benchmarking in criminology, first by pointing to the all too frequent subsumption of the discipline under sociology, and then by confusing it with forensic psychology, for which quite other qualifications are required by the British Psychological Society (BPS).  

In an attempt to disentangle the data and produce some evidence specifically relating to criminology, C-SAP contacted nine universities known to have carried out a first destination study for criminology. These institutions are listed in Appendix 3.  The results are set out below.  Several notes to these data are required.  First, the small number of institutions making exit surveys for criminology reflects the newness of the discipline; secondly, first jobs may be temporary, pending a more thorough job search or further training.  This is perhaps most likely to be the case for the 36% of first jobs which were unrelated to the degree.  Finally, it should be noted that exact numbers were not available for all respondent institutions, in which case one person was counted for each occupation listed; the ‘unknown’ and ‘unemployed’ categories have been eliminated; one course in criminal justice and policing was not included to avoid biasing the totals in the direction of police work.

JOB	Percentage
Support roles	15.3
Higher education	14.3
Policing or police research post	10.3
Probation	8.3
Prison related	7.9
Other crime related	4.4
Legal	2.5
Research	0.5
Home office	0.5
Unrelated to programme	36.0
	100.0  N203

 

The high “unrelated” figure may be a function of the large number of joint programmes, where the second subject may have led to the chosen career.  The two surprises were the large numbers (15.3%) of criminology graduates entering support roles in a wide range of fields such as homelessness, refugee work, victim support, or NGO researcher.  A minority in this category chose conventional social work.  The other surprise is that 14.3% of criminology graduates enter postgraduate education.  Only two of these 29 graduands chose teaching (PGCE).  The other choices are not documented.

The other categories also deserve a word: more graduates entered research or analytic posts in policing than became trainee police officers.  In this sense the 0.5% indicated as entering “research” is an underestimate of the numbers gaining employment as a result of their research skills.  The “other crime related” is the most heterogeneous category including, for example, work in private security, the immigration service, and one claims examiner.  The “probation” and “prison” categories are the most straightforward.

As a result of these analyses, the following organisations have been approached for comments on this bid. (List to be supplemented).

The Home Office Research, Statistics and Development Directorate.

The Association of Chief Police Officers.

The National Offender Management Service.

The Organisation of Private Security Agencies.

The Local Government Association.

The Chair, Community Safety Network. 

iv) Outcomes of discussion. These comments, together with those from cognate disciplines described in the previous section, have been incorporated into the document , except in those cases where they were in conflict with each other, in which case a judgment has been made based on the need for internal consistency and the balance of opinions proffered.

Correspondence received from cognate bodies, Heads of Department, and a sample of comments made via our website are attached as Appendix 3.

We therefore argue that this document is a fair representation of the views of the criminological community in relation to the need for a benchmarking statement to guide and ratify the education and training of future criminologists.

4 The insufficiency of existing benchmarking statements.

To date there are no benchmarking statements for criminology. This has been remarked upon in a paper published by C-SAP (Rosie, 1992: 64, 70). While a range of related disciplines may include courses in their curricula which could also be taught as part of a criminology degree (or joint criminology degree), no other discipline covers all the same subject areas, uses all the same methods, all the same theories, or qualifies candidates for the same range of careers. As has been demonstrated in the discussion of the curricula, the creative growth of criminology comes from its own intellectual traditions, and an important role for benchmarking is to ensure that these traditions are addressed in all courses, not to hold things back, but as in all disciplines to provide a grounding and a platform for development.

Criminology can be seen as a rendezvous discipline, a site at which social scientific disciplines interact. We therefore approach these distinctions in dialogic mode, not seeing the differences as barriers but rather as opportunities for debate and development. Such debates may usefully occur about the meaning of concepts which have a strategic place in more than one discipline. Currently the concept of globalisation provides such a site for debate.

It is in this dialogic spirit that some distinctions between criminology and what might be described as both user and contributor disciplines are set out below.

Criminology and sociology.

Criminology is most appropriately viewed as a ‘meeting place’ for a wide range of academic disciplines including sociology. As a field of study, it is held together by a substantive concern: crime (Walklate, 1998). This concern typically forms only a small part of a sociology degree programme, where crime is inevitably explored from a sociological rather than a multi-disciplinary perspective. In focusing on crime and its social and individual antecedents and effects, criminology necessarily draws on concepts developed within law, jurisprudence, cultural studies and political science as well as sociology. It is therefore distinct from sociology in both theoretical and methodological terms.

Whilst it would be fair to say that there has been a close relationship between the development of criminological and social theory, it is important to recognise that criminologists have also been influenced by theoretical developments in a range of disciplines, of which sociology is only one. None the less, the close relationship between criminology and sociology continues, and contemporary criminologists share with sociologists and other social scientists theoretical concerns in relation to ‘governance’, ‘risk’ and ‘globalisation’, for example, to the development of which several social science disciplines have contributed. Whilst criminology students need to be aware of related sociological debates, they also need to understand the ways in which these theoretical concepts relate to the study of crime. Criminology is also distinctive in that it has developed, and continues to develop, its own theoretical concepts and theoretical traditions. For example, the sub-field of victimology developed within criminology, and the recent growth of interest in ‘cultural criminology’ also moves beyond the customary concerns of sociology. Similarly recent criminological analyses of genocide and genocide trials use concepts and debates derived from law, politics, and philosophy as well as sociology, but the substantive concerns and the specific integration of these concepts and debates is uniquely criminological. 

Criminological researchers face ethical dilemmas and often encounters with risk, vulnerability and danger. These issues are not peculiar to criminological research; they apply also to sociological research (as well as research in other social scientific areas). However, researching crime and criminal justice raises these issues in a more constant and pressing way, and consequently students need to be encouraged to pay attention to such questions when designing research and carrying it out. As indicated on page 12, criminology, as it has emerged as a discipline, has also needed to invent its own methods to investigate its realities. The most obvious of these are the crime victim survey and the self reported offending (self report) study. Elaborations of these techniques have been also developed to explore more sensitive issues such as domestic violence and multiple victimisation/racial harassment.

More particularly, the Sociology benchmark statement does not require any knowledge of criminology, which remains optional. The following areas of knowledge and understanding required for criminology programmes are omitted from the sociology benchmarks:

• classical and modern criminological theory
• transnational and international crime and justice (as opposed to comparative work)
• an understanding of the processes of defining, adjudicating, and responding to ‘crime’ at local, national, and international levels
• an understanding of the structure and operation of the major control agencies of the state (eg police, probation, prison, youth justice, community safety)
• an understanding of the role of cultural agencies (the mass media or social groups) in relation to the production of and response to crime
• an understanding of the complex relationships of the state and its agencies not only as the formal (legal) ‘producer’ of crime, but also as both perpetrator and suppressor or criminal acts, as welfare provider and as record keeper
• an understanding of the major sites of offending: corporations; the domestic sphere; public places; work places; sites of leisure; quasi-public spaces; transnational networks, - and so on
• an understanding of the characteristics or victims of crime, and of the experiences and needs of victims

Thus the substantive areas of concern of criminology, criminal justice studies, and police studies are now too many to be included within a sociology degree, given the numerous other requirements of that discipline.

The career pathways of criminology and sociology graduates diverge in the extent to which criminology graduates seek careers which relate to crime control or criminal justice. Graduates of both courses seek “support giving” careers, and both find work in the public and voluntary sectors. Employment opportunities related to criminology have increased in recent years and particularly since 1997. Criminology students should have the appropriate knowledge and skills to take up positions in the criminal justice system; in local, regional and central government; and in the private and voluntary sectors.

Criminology and law.

The degree of overlap in subject matter between criminology and law programmes is very slight. Law students need to learn rules and their diverse (as between EU/UK) modes of interpretation, as well as legal philosophy. They also study the structure and operation of the legal system and the criminal justice process. Criminologists learn rules and interpretive rules, if at all, only later in their careers in relation to a particular research field. Nor do they necessarily learn jurisprudence, although debates about human rights may arise both in final year specialisms and, as indicated above (Hirsch, 2004) in relation to international crimes. The only substantive area of overlap lies in the study of police powers and practice, court processes, and – perhaps – prisoners’ rights.

Despite this area of overlap, the focus of a law training differs from that of a criminology training. This is apparent from the relevant benchmark statements. The law benchmarks are not confined to qualifying law degrees, but include all university level education in law and legal studies. In this broader sense, they are of relevance to criminology, but the latter could not be subsumed within them for several reasons.

1) The law benchmark statement applies only to students who have studied at least 180 credits of legal subjects. For undergraduates this is half of their course: criminology students would not generally be expected to reach this threshold – depending, of course, on the definition of ‘legal subjects’ used. There are references in the Law benchmarking document (eg p7) to criminology, but this seems to be in the context of students taking this as a minor component of a law degree, rather than students taking a specialised degree.

2) In terms of knowledge, criminology students might be expected to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the principal features of the legal system, but the emphasis would be related to criminal rather than civil law. They would not be expected to have the same range of knowledge of legal principles, etc. However, criminology students would also be expected to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of other disciplines, in a way that law students are not.

3) The law benchmarks say little about research methods beyond retrieval of legal information. Criminology students, on the other hand, might well be expected to demonstrate some knowledge of the philosophical foundations of different research methods and some proficiency in the use and evaluation of qualitative and quantitative methods.

4) These differences would have implications for transferable skills such as problem solving, communication skills, etc. Criminology students might, for example, be expected to apply interdisciplinary (as opposed to legal) knowledge to a wider range of problems than those for which legal solutions are possible. Key skills, such as communication and literacy, are clearly of relevance to criminology, but these skills need to encompass more than the communication of legal matters and materials. The ways in which some of the transferable and key skills are expressed are too narrow for criminology students: for example, analysis, synthesis, critical judgment and evaluation are relevant, but synthesis of legal doctrinal issues would be of less relevance to criminology. Many of the key skills (use of www, email, group work, etc) are pertinent to criminology but would need re-phrasing to avoid a narrowly legal focus.

5) The issue of the phrasing of key skills is important because these are relevant to students who are, in general, planning legal careers. Criminology, criminal justice, and policing/police studies students are likely to undertake much more diverse career paths, including, for example, practice in a variety of statutory (police, prison service, probation, etc) or voluntary agencies (policy development, advocacy work, victim support etc). The range of demonstrable relevant skills therefore needs to be wider in scope than is the case for law students.

Criminology and political science.

The areas of common concern between criminology and politics/political science are relatively few in this country, although the greater congruence in the United States, where political scientists have concerned themselves with the operation of state agencies such as criminal courts and regulatory agencies, indicates a potential overlap with criminological analyses of the criminal justice process and the control of corporate crime. More recently work, for example, on genocide and in relation to state crime, suggests the possibility of a closer relationship between the two disciplines as the processes and effects of globalisation are increasingly addressed by social scientists. It is this potential for overlap which necessitates a consideration of politics, and more particularly of political science, in this document.

The present subject benchmark statement for Politics and International Relations indicates no clear overlap with criminology, although questions of ‘justice’ are alluded to. Although the police, the courts, and the various penal practice agencies are central to the exercise of state power, both nationally and, insofar as human rights are a bargaining counter between states, internationally, the politics benchmark statement does not mention these substantive areas. As the field of politics and international relations presently defines itself, the overlap with criminology is minimal.

The politics and international relations benchmarks do not include the ability to evaluate or use either qualitative or survey methods, although quantitative methods are mentioned in para 3.1 (4)(b). There is a greater emphasis on comparative work, historical analyses, and the retrieval and analysis of documents. These techniques are used by professional criminologists but would not be core skills in a criminology honours degree.

The theories deployed by criminologists and students of politics and international relations overlap at the most general level, insofar as Marxism, post modernism, functionalism, realism, feminism and so on underpin all social scientific work, and all imply a theory of the state and its agencies. There is no evidence of theoretical overlap at any other level.

The careers followed by criminology graduates have no overlap with those of politics students except perhaps for that small number of political science graduates who find employment in ‘health and social work (4.9%)’ or ‘personal and protective services (6.6%)’. Increasingly, however, graduates from criminology degrees will be seeking work in local and international NGOs, where they may indeed work alongside political scientists.

Criminology and social policy.

Social policy and criminology share a precarious existence as applied disciplines where there may be strong external pressures to underplay the theoretical work on which they depend. Given the common focus on looking at social problems/harms/needs and their alleviation or control (with crime a paradigmatic example of a ‘social problem’), it is surprising to note that the two disciplines have only had limited forms of cross-fertilisation in recent decades. 

In the Social Policy benchmarking statement, of the 27 themes and issues outlined as indicative of social policy degree courses, only one topic (‘crime and criminal justice policy’) has any direct relevance to the core concerns of contemporary criminology. Recent publications indicate that the institutional focus of Social Policy is on the ‘production, organisation and consumption of welfare’ (not including freedom from crime) whilst ‘issues in social policy’ only mentions crime briefly with regard to ‘young people’. 

In terms of the service-based issues confronted by Social Policy analysts, crime control appears peripheral to this discipline. 

Social Policy and Criminology nonetheless share the deployment of such fundamental social science concepts as power, class, gender and race, theories of the state and governance, and increasingly questions of risk and globalisation. Perhaps the strongest connection intellectually between the two disciplines is the shared emphasis on the links between poverty/inequality/marginalisation/social exclusion and criminalisation. It is possible that future productive cross-fertilisation will be associated with the increasingly important theses in criminology of the ‘criminalisation of social problems’ and the claim that we have seen a historical shift of late from ‘governing through welfare’ to ‘governing through crime’.

The transnational and global dimensions of contemporary crime and justice are not addressed by social policy, which remains largely pegged to the activities of state and regional governments. In contrast to social policy, criminology is a fast growing discipline in both teaching and research terms both in the UK and internationally in the post-welfare state era.

At the level of skills the two disciplines have much in common. Both draw on quantitative, qualitative and interpretive methods of investigation . Both disciplines also share with other social scientists the common experience of conducting research on politically and ethically sensitive topics. However, given the politically and morally visceral nature of debates on crime and law and order, these issues are raised in a particularly pressing and urgent manner in criminology and students must pay heed to such issues both when designing and when carrying out research. Issues of confidentiality and of avoidance of harm to research subjects have a particular salience within criminology when either offenders or victims are studied, and these concerns will therefore find a place in a benchmarked syllabus for methods teaching in criminology. It has already been noted earlier that criminology has also had to ‘invent’ its own methods and tools of analysis to explore its specific realities (see ‘Criminology and sociology’ above). 

The careers chosen by graduates of the two disciplines are related but distinct. Both criminologists and social policy graduates enter ‘human service’ professions and ‘people-oriented’ careers although criminology graduates are more likely to enter the public services of crime control and community safety, where our research shows that their skills are in demand for research and crime analysis as much as for interpersonal control work. Criminologists may also be drawn to the growing private sector organisations linked to prevention and security management. Criminologists also find employment in victim or offender related NGOs, whether local or international, and also in human rights NGOs concerned with rights of prisoners or rights not to be victims of sexual or racial/ethnic violence or of terrorism.

Criminology and forensic psychology.

The subject skills for Psychology, whether “subject skills” or “generic skills” are expressed at a very general level. The Psychology benchmark statement makes it clear that postgraduate studies in psychology are likely to be necessary for the acquisition of a practice skill such as forensic psychology (4.b.i). As a result there is a great deal in both subject skills (4.b.ii) and generic skills (4.b.iii) that a criminologist could accept. At the more concrete level of forensic psychology, however, the differences become clear.

Both criminology and forensic psychology study the nature of and reasons for offending, issues related to the working of the criminal justice system, issues relating to victimisation, and issues relating to punishment. Despite this overlap there are clear differences in subject matter. Criminologists are concerned with social censure and the cultural and political processes whereby certain kinds of behaviour are criminalized (and others not); these questions are not addressed within forensic psychology.

Criminologists are concerned with the social harms resulting from, for example, corporate crime, state crime, or living in a community perceived to be unsafe, as well as the inputs and outputs of the criminal legal process. As one of our respondents put it, “forensic psychology focuses more on the individual within a given context, whilst criminology focuses on the situation” (including individuals). 

The same differences in the object constructed for study apply in relation to all the substantive areas addressed by both disciplines: policing, imprisonment, and court process, for example.

These differences in the object of analysis arise from differences in theory. Criminology necessarily deploys concepts of class, gender, race, ethnicity, the state, the person, the polity, and culture developed within sociology, cultural studies, feminist theory, and political science. Such concepts are intrinsic to criminological analyses, whether theoretical or practice oriented. Critical analysis and deployment of these concepts is not intrinsic to psychology. Criminological theory itself develops these concepts further, viz the example of “responsibilisation” referred to above as a new way of theorising the relationship between the central state and the voluntary sector or citizenry.

The methods deployed by the two disciplines again have areas of overlap but are not identical. Forensic psychology depends heavily on the experimental method, and also to an extent on volunteer samples. While criminologists have used both techniques, survey methods, qualitative interviews, quasi participant observation, and documentary analysis have been much more common, and are usually more appropriate to the topics being investigated.

Finally, the careers chosen by graduates of the two disciplines are quite distinct. Forensic psychologists work with individual offenders/ex offenders or assist the police in the preparation of suspect profiles. Criminologists, judging by the data we have received, enter policing, probation, and a range of community safety concerns, as well as support agencies under the auspices of NGOs and local authorities. We have limited evidence as to the work they do when hired as researchers by the police, but it is likely to involve analysis of crime patterns or personnel rather than being offender focused.

Conclusion.

In this section we have demonstrated not only that there is no appropriate benchmark statement for criminology, but also that criminology has emerged as a discipline distinct from other, related, social sciences in terms of its subject matter, its theoretical concerns and development, its methodologies and techniques, and in the careers for which it equips its undergraduate students. 

i) Aspects of the conceptual framework are shared with some of the cognate disciplines (the “grand theories” with sociology, social policy, and politics; theories of justice and of legal entitlements with law; rather little except for the substantive issues with psychology). None the less, criminology has developed a distinct theoretical tradition, first in theories of ‘crime’ and ‘criminality’; later in theories of forms of control, their effects, and their effectiveness. This theoretical tradition has enabled criminology to expand its substantive concerns in an exponential manner, resulting in a plethora of optional courses, any one of which could expand into a new core unit. Above all, it is largely this explosion of imaginative growth that cannot be contained within the established disciplines.

In addition, and increasingly, professional criminologists and our graduates are being called upon to advise and inform the work of crime control agencies: from preventing youth offending to advising the prison service about deaths in custody; from the role of the police in community safety teams to the structure and functioning of the people trade; from how to count family violence to how to prevent it; from institutional racism to the management of diversity. Criminology must develop in its own way to meet these challenges of the 21st century. The new problems demand new theories and new methods, and teaching must reflect this.

In sum, not only does criminology not share a sufficiency of the conceptual framework of any other discipline, but the movement is centrifugal. This rapidly growing separation, as we argue in the next section, needs the particular kind of light touch steering which only subject specific benchmarks can provide.

ii) It is the view of the Society that criminology could not be accommodated by the modification of existing benchmarks. The substantive core and the innovative and particular methodologies are both growing. Accommodation could not be achieved because of:

• lack of curriculum space;
• interdisciplinarity: the subject cannot be “trapped” in the benchmarks of a single existing discipline. For example, elements of international human rights law and of municipal criminal law are increasingly taught. These would fall outside a sociology or social policy benchmarking statement, for example, yet they may become essential for criminology. Change in an interdisciplinary direction would be inhibited;
• rate of change: criminology achieved intellectual autonomy relatively recently. It now defines and produces its own objects and methods of study. This has enabled the growth, the excitement, and the constant emergence of new sub fields. The discipline now needs benchmarks which enhance the possibilities for this productive and unpredictable intellectual growth. Insisting on the core requirements of other disciplines could limit this expansion.

iii) In the preceding discussion we have shown that in general terms the sociology benchmarks have some relevance, but lack the substantive depths. The concerns indicated by the social policy and politics benchmarks similarly slightly overlap both the methods, and some theories, deployed by criminologists. However, criminology has a long history of developing its own methods and theories and this continues. Both for theory and method, and even more so in relation to the substantive core of the discipline, these three social science subjects have made an important contribution to the development of criminology, but the separation is now such that an enumeration of theories and substantive concerns (and methods to a lesser extent) would result in a separate statement.

5 The Necessity and Benefits of a Subject Benchmark Statement for Criminology.

The argument from growth

Criminology has existed as a course within a range of degree programmes ever since the Second World War. However, in recent years, the subject has shown a remarkable growth. There are now 29 full degree programmes, 108 half-degree programmes, and 243 Masters or other post-graduate courses in the field. The Society is not in a position conclusively to demonstrate growth as we have only just begun to monitor this area, but we can show that the subject is large enough to warrant separate consideration, and in Section 1 (p 5) some empirical evidence of growth was presented. C-SAP has provided us with evidence of an increase in the numbers of students registered for criminology courses over the three years between 2001-2 and 2003-4 (see Table 1, p 3). We can also document growth in our own membership, which has a year on year net increase of approximately 20 people.

Most of the growth is in the new university sector, where traditionally there has been greater diversity. For this reason, in preparing this submission (and, as we hope, the subsequent benchmarking statement) we have, with the generous assistance of C-SAP, collected programme specifications for a sample of UCAS listed programmes in the field so that this diversity could be taken account of in the benchmarking document (see Table 2, p 5).

It will strengthen the discipline if a broadly accepted benchmarking statement can be provided as a flexible steering mechanism to give guidance to those developing new programmes by indicating a core of subject and other skills while leaving considerable opportunity for the creative development of the discipline in a range of optional subjects. Rapid development in the absence of such a steering device could lead to confusion as to the meaning of the degree, and a loss of ‘value’ both in terms of how to place research theoretically and in terms of employment possibilities for graduates.

The argument from the need for professional standards.

Growth is an advantage: it opens up new careers, encourages new research interests, brings resources into the university. But popularity also has its disadvantages. The Society has had occasion to correspond expressing grave concern with an organisation purporting to teach criminology, although the Society, un-benchmarked, has no authority to intervene. The organisation in this instance pointed out that it did not claim to qualify people in any way. The message from this incident is, however, clear. It is necessary to establish by dialogue amongst university level practitioners what our discipline consists in; what, in effect, are the minimum criteria for a person to claim to be qualified as a criminologist. This is, of course, a matter of purely internal concern, a question of status. It is, however, also much more than that. Given the areas of immense sensitivity in which our students choose to work (the probation service, for example) it is essential that the nature of the qualification they are offering, the knowledge base and skills involved, should be something that both an employer and a client can have confidence in.

The argument from teaching and learning.

It is a matter of concern to the society that people untrained in criminology may offer “criminology” courses to undergraduate and post-graduate students. In such cases students are deprived of the theoretical grounding which alone can

i) provide a basis for the critique of others’ research;

ii) identify new problem areas;

iii) pinpoint the data in relation to a complex problem which have explanatory value.

At the taught post-graduate level this is the difference between a dissertation likely to lead to further research and ceasing study with a master’s degree or a diploma.

Establishing a benchmark for criminology will enhance the development of teaching and learning within the discipline itself. The benchmarking process transmits the value of the discipline in a way that is commensurate with appropriate skills. The baseline will encourage academic staff to use the methodological and theoretical issues of their own discipline critically, as well as provide a reference point from which to develop modules and assess the progress of teaching and learning within the criminology community.

As well as establishing a baseline on which to assess minimum standards for teaching and learning within the discipline, the creation, implementation and review of the criminology benchmark will generate a debate about the practice of teaching and learning within the discipline itself.

This debate will allow for the dissemination of good practice among academic staff as well as enabling colleagues to share innovations in teaching and learning.

The benchmark will provide a basis for systematic reflection at all levels, among students and academic staff, on the purpose and practice of the teaching and learning of criminology. This systematic reflection shifts away from a narrow focus on the performance of the lecturer to the whole process by which the student learns and is taught criminology.

The argument from expectations.

[The expectations of employing organisations will be inserted here]

The argument from the membership.

The Society undertook the task of establishing benchmarks in criminology at the explicit request of the membership. The matter had been debated, but there had been some reluctance to appear to close what has hitherto been an open occupational category. Very few current teachers of the subject themselves have undergraduate degrees in criminology.

The pressure from our membership in the form of a motion from the floor at the 2003 AGM derived from several interrelated occupationally specific concerns in addition to the concerns about professional boundaries and the need for minimum teaching and standards already described.

i) Members feel that the lack of a distinct – i.e. a benchmarked – discipline of criminology has led to funded research grants which were properly criminological being awarded to researchers outside the discipline. In part this is a narrowly professional concern about losing out to the competition. But in addition to this understandable anxiety there is a belief that a person trained in criminology and with a track record of criminological research would do the job better, providing a theoretical and research-based context for appropriate design and for the interpretation of the results. Criminologists consider that when their discipline is appropriated by others empiricist results are produced which may mislead the donor/user.

ii) Members have pointed out that the absence of benchmarks has fed into a longstanding problem of the unpredictable and perhaps inequitable assessment of criminological research by a range of RAE panels. Our own research revealed that in 2002 23% of criminological work was submitted to the sociology panel, 52% to social policy, and 26% to law (BSC Newsletter 49, June 2003, p 3). This ‘disappearing’ of the discipline has recursive effects, reinforcing its future invisibility and relative lack of influence for its size.

iii) Members have noted the incongruity involved in being recognised as members of a learned society by the Academy of Social Sciences while having no entry qualification or educational recognition.

Practical Concerns.

Institutional commitments.

Colleagues working in academic institutions, not least those in new universities, have indicated that their ‘host’ departments would be reluctant to see separate departments of criminology because it is a discipline upon which they depend for student numbers (hence the large number of joint degree programmes), high RAE scores, and research grants. The Society would prefer these important economic questions to be resolved in an uncontentious way, not least because the new universities are the main growth point of our discipline. Our suggestions to the Roberts Review and RAE 2008 Team were designed to enable criminology courses and staff to remain with their ‘host’ disciplines in the short to medium term, while enabling full and public recognition of the contribution of criminological staff to the life of the relevant School or department. This would facilitate the growth of the discipline while continuing to benefit the host departments and the institution as a whole.

It is the judgment of the Society that appropriate benchmarking for criminological courses would in a similar way benefit both the discipline and its host departments or Schools. In the case of benchmarking, however, it would also help students

viii) to select appropriate courses within and between institutions;

ix) to appraise the quality of their courses;

x) to monitor their own progress;

xi) to find suitable employment.

Course, degree, and programme titles

The Society is of the view that benchmarking will establish minimum criteria for criminological qualifications. To this extent it may be necessary for the titles of some courses, degrees, and programmes to be changed once benchmarking has been accomplished.

However, the society is approaching these questions in ‘dialogic mode’ (Wright, 2002: 130). We do not wish to exclude topics from programmes, or, indeed, from courses. Our aim is that of all bench-markers, to ensure that the basic minimum of substantive, theoretical, and methodological training is guaranteed to all graduates of full degree courses in criminology, criminal justice, and police studies.

Conclusion.

On the basis of the above discussion and submission the British Society of Criminology requests permission from the QAA to develop subject benchmarks for single honours degrees in criminology, and degrees with the titles listed in Appendix 1.

References.

National Reports (2004/5) Bologna Process: Towards the European Higher Education Area, London, DES

Rosie, A (2002) “The undergraduate social science curriculum and its location: regulatory discourses in action” in D Jary (ed) Benchmarking and Quality Management: The Debate in UK Higher Education, C-SAP Monograph No 1, LTSN Centre for Sociology, Anthropology, and Politics, University of Birmingham, pp 62-82.

Wright, S (2002) “Enhancing the quality of teaching in universities: through coercive managerialism or organisational democracy?” in D Jary (ed) Benchmarking and Quality Management: The Debate in UK Higher Education, C-SAP Monograph No 1, LTSN Centre for Sociology, Anthropology, and Politics, University of Birmingham, pp 115-142.

Notes.

[1] Courses titled, for example, “Criminal justice studies” were not included in the count, although those offering or examining such courses might well wish to refer to criminology benchmarks were they to be established.

[2] This is not intended to imply that the quality of half courses in criminology will be sufficient to meet the proposed new benchmarks. One of the leading institutions in the field, both nationally and internationally (Keele University) offers only joint courses in all subjects including criminology.

[3] Collection of additional programme specifications is ongoing. Revisions arising from this more comprehensive database will be included prior to submission.

[4] The count in this section is of institutions rather than courses, in so far as the criminology offering was linked with a range of partner disciplines in many institutions, while itself remaining constant.

[5] Some joint honours students take research methods courses offered by social science disciplines. These are not included in our count.

[6] Consultations with additional cognate disciplines will be welcomed.

[8] As forensic psychology has no benchmarks, this account is based on discussions with colleagues from forensic psychology.

[9] Alternative counts from C-SAP and a colleague have revealed 33 and 26 degree programmes respectively. We have chosen the mid point, based on a count of UCAS advertised courses in 2003-4.

[10] Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the Society 25-06-03: minute 12.

[11] However, the BSC has now been recognised as a nominating body by the RAE2008 team, and has made two acknowledged representations to the ESRC in regard to its future direction, as well as a published submission to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, also in relation to the RAE2008.

[12] Copies can be made available on request.

 

Appendix 1.

Single Honours Degrees to which the Criminology Benchmarking Statement will apply (including joint Honours Degrees where both subjects are constitutive of Criminology).

Applied Criminal Justice Studies. Applied Criminology (criminal and community justice). Applied Social Science (crime). Applied Social Science (criminology). Crime and Justice. Crime and Society. Crime, Deviance, and Society. Crime, Law, and Policy. Criminal Justice. Criminal Justice Administration (Police Studies). Criminal Justice and Criminology. Criminal Justice and Policing. Criminal Justice Studies. Criminology. Criminology and Criminal Justice. Criminological Studies. Policing. Policing and Criminology. Police Science. Police Studies. Youth Justice.

Appendix 2.

Universities whose Courses were Included in the Content Analysis (first draft).

Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge. University of Wales, Bangor. The University of Birmingham. Blackburn College, East Lancashire Institute of Higher Education. Brunel University. The University of Buckingham. The University of Cambridge. Christ Church University College, Canterbury. University College, Chester. Coventry University. Derby College. Edge Hill. University of Essex. Glamorgan University. Greenwich University. Hull University. Keele University. University of Kent. Leicester University. London Guildhall. London School of Economics. Loughborough University. Roehampton University. Salford University. University of Sheffield. Sheffield Hallam University. Solent University. University of Southampton. Staffordshire University. Sunderland University. Teesside University. Thames Valley University. University of Wales at Swansea.

Appendix 3.

Sources of Data Re: Employment.

The University of Central England. The University of East London. Edgehill.Keele University. Lancaster University. Leeds University. Liverpool John Moores University. Luton University. University of Portsmouth. Warwick University.