Bachelor of Science in Criminological Sciences
Choosing the Criminology programme means opting for a challenging theoretical study programme, which is a far cry from training to become a police officer or a crime scene investigator (CSI). Instead, you will learn to reflect on criminological phenomena at a policy level. The multidisciplinary Criminology programme combines the study of sociology, criminal law, historical criticism, and psychology in order to understand criminal behaviour.
What
Nowadays virtually every newspaper or newsfeed contains references to some type of ‘criminal’ behaviour. The Criminology programme studies these forms of behaviour, as well as the processes leading up to and following it. A criminologist studies a broad scope of transgressive and socially deviant behaviour. This includes organised crime, as well as various less visible forms such as economic, tax, and environmental crimes. In so doing, criminology not only focuses on perpetrators, but also on public responses, the fate of crime victims, the social origin of criminal law, the functioning of the police, the prosecutor’s office, the magistracy and administration.
For whom
Choosing the Criminology programme means opting for a challenging theoretical study programme, which is a far cry from training to become a police officer or a crime scene investigator (CSI). Instead, you will learn to reflect on criminological phenomena at a policy level.
- Admission into the programme is not subject to specific prior knowledge. Our programme does require, however, an innate interest in human behaviour in conflict situations, in criminological phenomena, and in various types of deviant behaviour displayed by individuals as well as by groups.
- Your approach to this field of study stems from a broad interest in different disciplines (such as psychology, sociology, criminal law, historical criticism, and history). You have a genuine interest in current events and in the national and international context in which criminality occurs.
- You want to understand the processes that make human behaviour either punishable, or not. What reactions do criminality and deviant behaviour elicit, and what role does social control have to play? You want to look for the causes and explanations of deviant behaviour, criminality, feelings of insecurity, and nuisance. You are interested in the role of prevention and welfare work, and in the enforcement of criminal law.
To all these phenomena, you want to apply a theoretical and conceptual approach based on insights gained from academic research and international specialist literature (in English and in French). The methodological and statistical course units will teach you how to collect and process data. Such quantitative research goes hand in hand with statistics, so a sound knowledge of mathematics is a must!
Structure
Bachelor
The curriculum of the Bachelor's programma contains various curricular strands
- It includes introductory course units in auxiliary disciplines that provide vital sources of inspiration for criminologists: psychology, sociology, economics, and national policing. A selection of legal course units introduces essential legal concepts and institutions, criminal law and criminal proceedings. In the discipline-specific course units, you will become acquainted with the police, the judiciary, the social sector, social work, the semi-public and private sectors, and criminology research focused on these actors. The curricular strand on methodology prepares you to design and conduct independent academic research. You will learn the complexities of the research cycle, the various methods of data collection, and how to analyse and interpret both quantitative and qualitative data.
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The third-year curriculum allows for electives.
- Students can choose from programme-specific course units such as methodology, legal, and language units, along with options from other Ghent University programmes, including Economics, Political Sciences, History, Communication Sciences, Psychology, and Educational Sciences, as well as a variety of university-wide electives.
- Another option is to take course units from the Master of Science in Teaching in Behavioural Sciences. Upon successful completion, you will gain direct admission to the Master of Science in Teaching programme.
- Finally, third-year students also select one course unit from a list of “Selected Issues,” which are all taught in English and based on the specific expertise of our lecturers. These course units serve to enhance your English proficiency and contribute to the further internationalisation of our programme.
Master
Once you obtain your Bachelor’s degree, you can further specialise by selecting either our one-year Master’s programme in Criminology or our two-year international Advanced Research Master in Criminology. The former emphasises a 300-hour work placement in the police force, the justice department, the social sector, or R&D. Meanwhile, the latter is a research programme featuring classes taught at Ghent University and Erasmus University Rotterdam. You will engage in various fundamental and methodology course units, focusing on international criminology in general and transgression, safety, and social justice in particular. There is also the option to pursue a work placement or conduct fieldwork abroad. Both Master’s programmes culminate in a Master’s dissertation.
- Your Bachelor’s degree in Criminology also provides access to other Master's programmes beyond the ones mentioned here. Please review the 'Postgraduate Studies' tab.
Labour Market
Criminology graduates have a wide range of interesting job opportunities in a large variety of sectors. They usually find employment at government agencies and non-profit organisations. In addition to the more traditional employment opportunities (police forces, penal institutions, and counselling), new job opportunities have arisen in the past few decades. Working for the government, for example, now includes positions as prevention officers or as victim support liaison officers, or positions in houses of justice, and in alternative sanctions. Additional job opportunities in the profit sector are on the rise: in the (private) security sector, for example, there is an increasing demand for criminologists in various management positions. In the financial sector, criminologists are often employed in positions dealing with fiscal compliance.
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Take a look at our faculty website for career testimonials by Criminology graduates (in Dutch).
Quality Assurance
At Ghent University, we strive to educate people who dare to think about the challenges of tomorrow. For that purpose, we provide education that is embedded in six strategic objectives: Think Broadly, Keep Researching, Cultivate Talent, Contribute, Extend Horizons, Opt for Quality.
Ghent University continuously focuses on quality assurance and quality culture. The Ghent University's quality assurance system offers information on each study programme’s unique selling points, and on its strengths and weaknesses with regard to quality assurance.
More information:
Unique Selling Points
- Knowledge creation: we value gradual knowledge-building strongly. A Criminology graduate is versatile and broadly trained, and has had sufficient opportunity to specialise. We encourage our students constantly to engage in critical self-reflection.
- Multidisciplinary theoretical offer: a criminologist is a social scientist who learns to fathom “transgressive behaviour” (crime) using theoretical insights from various disciplines. Students acquire a critical perspective on the causes, prevention and policy approach of crime.
- Step-by-step in-depth methodology: from the first year, the criminologist-to-be learns to use the various academic/scientific methods the discipline of criminology contains. In the senior years, there is room for a thorough deepening of quantitative and qualitative research methods.
- Strong embedding in the professional field: the work placement in the Master’s is one of the most important assets of our study programme. For three months, students are immersed in the practice of various sectors and learn to function independently and in a team.
- A combination English-taught course units and internationally acclaimed research allows our students to come into contact with the criminology jargon and with high-quality international research in various course units. For the purpose of the Bachelor’s and Master’s dissertation, we teach our students to process academic literature gradually and independently.
Strengths
- Our Criminology programme is of premium quality. From a clear vision on what we expect from our graduates, we have built a curriculum that is logical, innovative and challenging.
- The Master’s curriculum contains a strong practical component which takes the form of a work placement. The work placement allows us to test our programme to the reality of criminological practice, and to entertain strong ties with the professional field. Taken together, the work placement and the Master’s dissertation are the culmination of the study programme.
- Our course units are in the hands of a motivated and enthusiastic teaching staff, whose specialised academic research feeds into their teaching practice. According to our students, our lecturers are highly accessible.
- Students have sufficient curricular freedom to specialise in one or more domains of criminology.
- We engage in continuous quality monitoring of our study programme, involving students and their representatives actively.
- Student feedback reveals that student satisfaction on the study programme is high.
Challenges
- Internationalisation: we want to extend our study abroad opportunities further (Erasmus, international work placements, etc.) and inform our students better of the existing opportunities. Because studying abroad is not an obvious and feasible choice for everyone, we want to focus more on Internationalisation@Home initiatives and on expanding internationalisation of our programme.
- More focus on ‘entrepreneurship’ and ‘social engagement’: although the study programme places great store by these topics, we address them in a rather ad hoc and fragmented manner throughout the curriculum. We want to embed these topics more firmly into the curriculum and offer students maximum opportunities to develop the relevant competencies.
- Study progress in our study programme is rather low, and is mainly due to prospective students’ misconceptions about criminology: we are working on initiatives to improve student intake and study success, e.g. by communicating clearly on the content of our study programme vis-à-vis prospective students and student counsellors
This study programme is accredited by the Accreditation Organization of the Netherlands and Flanders (Dutch: NVAO). Accreditation was extended following the positive outcome of the institutional review in 2022. Programme quality was validated by a quality review, i.e. a screening of the Education Monitor by the Education Quality Board. The Quality Assurance Resolution (in Dutch) can be found here.
This information was last updated on 02/02/2023.
In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.