What can I do to prepare for the course?
1. Read the news
In Criminology, we are often referring to articles, news stories and journalists in the media so it is crucial to stay up to date. This is simple: spend a few minutes a day looking through the stories and reading anything that seems relevant (for example, policy changes, crime news, investigations or events). When you see a news story that is particularly controversial, it is a great idea to research other news websites to see different perspectives of the same story (e.g. BBC vs The Guardian vs The Times) and note the differences and similarities – for example, how they perceive the offender or victim or how they explain a crime or policy change. This will be useful and a great habit to develop, as you will be doing this throughout the course.
2. Watch and listen to the News
The BBC and Channel 4 news are probably the best to watch but try and look at a range of different news channels and think about their different focus and framing of stories and why this could be the case. Listen to the news via BBC radio 4 and engage with their specialist programmes such as Laurie Taylor’s long term show Thinking Allowed, but also the Moral Maze, All in the Mind and Women’s Hour.
3. Podcasts
We have Crime Tapes https://crimetapes.buzzsprout.com/ as our University of Staffordshire podcast, but there is a wealth of great true crime podcasts out there covering everything crime related you could ever imagine. Some are more subject-tied like Conversations with Criminologists https://anchor.fm/criminology or the University of Oxfords https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/criminology
4. Netflix and BBC IPlayer
Yes, Netflix is a goldmine, and parts of Criminology (believe it or not) are so trendy that they deal with cultural products and news media. Some very high-profile Criminologists such as Yvonne Jewkes, Keith Hayward, Jeff Ferrell, Chris Greer and David Wilson have said quite a bit on media representations of crime, and Netflix has some great shows: Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, Tiger King, Don't F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer, The Staircase, Making a Murderer, The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, Amanda Knox. Fictional representations can be good too, especially those looking at crime. The Wire, the Walking Dead and the Sopranos have been much discussed by Criminologists, as have programmes like the Shield, but programmes like the BBC 2 Cops Like Us shows officers from Staffordshire police, including some at our University, and they describe with brutal honesty the everyday challenges of policing in a climate of cuts and changing crime in the area https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ggk1, which makes it very relevant to us. You can also watch Jimmy McGovern’s three-part docu-drama Time featuring Stephen Graham and Sean Bean.
5. Browse the library
It is never too early to get prepared. Get into your local library or your nearest city library (or even a university library if you have one close by) and look at the Criminology section. Take some time reading around Criminological theories, case studies, different types of crime, the media and the criminal justice system. You may feel overwhelmed by how much information is out there but there is no harm in getting used to the different types of textbooks. We suggest you do not buy textbooks or if you do, only get second-hand ones, before you start but as a primer Treadwell’s book Criminology is a good introductory and basic overview.
6. Specific reading
Please do not buy new and expensive textbooks before you arrive as the reading lists can change each year. However, it is a good idea to check out general Criminology textbooks that cover everything especially if they can be bought online at a low cost. Sometimes older editions remain useful, they certainly paint a picture of what the concerns of the time where when they were published, but as well as specialist texts we recommend some other introductions. James Treadwell and Adam Lynes 50 Facts Everyone Should Know About Crime and Punishment in Britain is a really accessible and readable text on the Criminal Justice System of England and Wales and contains some interesting facts that you may not know about how criminal justice operates.
7. Find your interest!
Finally, through all this preparation and reading you may figure out where your interest lies. For example, is your interest in youth crime, violent crime, international and corporate crime, Green Criminology or perhaps Sports Criminology? Are you interested in the Courts, Police, Prisons or Probation? This sort of early preparation can be useful to get you thinking early about your final dissertation project and, while you do not need to think too much about that yet, having some ideas can help.