Police, Policing and the Police

Code

SOCI2025

School

Sociology and Social Policy

Level

2

Credits

20

Semesters

Autumn UK

Summary

This module is concerned with the sociology and politics of policing. The focus will be on England and Wales but the module will draw on literature and experiences from other jurisdictions around the world.  
 
The module will engage with a broad range of topics that sit around the distinction between police, policing, and the police. This will include an examination of the history surrounding formal and informal policing, the culture surrounding modern policing, and how these factors influence policy, strategy, and operational processes. 

Target Students

Available to all level 2 and 3 students including subsidiary students from outside the school and exchange students.

Classes

This module is taught through a combination of lectures and seminars.

Assessment

• 50% Coursework: 2000 words.
• 50% Exam (1-hour): Online exam.

Assessed by end of autumn semester

Educational Aims

Learning Outcomes

(A) Knowledge and understanding

Students who successfully complete the module will be able to:

1. Critically evaluate the scholarly literature on the origins and development of policing and the public police.
2. Make a rigorous and theoretically informed assessment of the current state of policing and the work of the public police in relation to a range of issues and topics in their contemporary social and political context.

(B) Intellectual skills

Students who successfully complete the module will be able to:

1. Engage critically and creatively with academic research and policy literatures and apply insights from those literatures to the current and future practice of policing.

(C) Transferable (key) skills

Students who successfully complete the module will be able to:

1. Communicate ideas clearly and concisely in a form suitable for the public, academics, policymakers and practitioners in policing.

Conveners

• Dr Jerry Coulton