Access to HE Online

CRIMINOLOGY

AIMS OF THE COURSE

THE ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION (HE) DIPLOMA IS A QUALIFICATION, EQUIVALENT TO A LEVEL, WHICH ALLOWS LEARNERS TO GO ON AND STUDY AT UNIVERSITY WHEN THEY DID NOT HAVE THE RELEVANT QUALIFICATIONS NEEDED TO DO SO. ACCESS TO HE COURSES ARE AVAILABLE IN A WIDE RANGE OF DIFFERENT SUBJECTS AND ARE WIDELY RECOGNISED BY UK UNIVERSITIES.

Contact Us

Email: ELearning@escg.ac.uk
Tel: 030 300 38368

KEY COURSE DETAILS

  • Course code: 61029
  • Course Fee: £3,022
  • Course length: 10 months
  • Recommended study per week: 15 hours*
  • Total number of units within the course: 20

* You should allow a total of around 15 study hours per week to complete the whole qualification, over 10 months. If you study more hours each week, you may finish the course more quickly.

BENEFITS FOR INDIVIDUALS

After successfully completing this Access to Higher Education Diploma, you’ll have a good understanding of criminology, the consequences that deviant behaviour has on victims, families, criminals, and society. You will learn about why a crime happens and preventive measures. Once you have chosen and completed your degree programme, you will be ready to begin your career in Criminology.

Potential career paths:

  • campaigning organisations and social research
  • crime prevention
  • criminal justice (police, prison service, probation service, youth justice service)
  • criminologist
  • detective
  • education
  • government (Civil Service, local government offices)
  • investigative journalism
  • law enforcement
  • lecturer
  • non-governmental organisations
  • police constable
  • prison officer
  • prison service
  • probation officer
  • research analyst
  • research and academia
  • scene of crime officer
  • social work
  • victim support
  • welfare and service charities
  • youth work

You may wish to undertake further study to work as a solicitor or in other legal professional jobs.

SUPPORT PROVIDED

A qualified Assessor will mark your work and provide written feedback via the VLE. Your appointed Assessor will confirm contact hours once you start your learning and will be able to offer support via email correspondence. During Induction you will be provided with a Study Plan including the expected assessment schedule for your course.

PASS CRITERIA

  • Each unit includes specific Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria.
  • To achieve a Pass in any assessment you must meet all criteria.
  • The list of detailed Assessment Criteria for each Unit is made available to you on the VLE.

COURSE CONTENT

The course consists of 20 Units of Study.

  • UNIT 1 PREPARING FOR SUCCESS – INDUCTION UNIT
    • This introductory unit will provide you with useful information, advice and guidance to enable you to get the most from your studies and help you to decide which options within HE are best suited to you. Once you have completed all of the elements of this introductory section you will be able to progress onto the units of study for your Access to HE Diploma
  • UNIT 2 ACADEMIC WRITING SKILLS
    • Be able to write with relevance in responding to an academic task.
    • Know how to interpret and discuss ideas and issues in responding to a set, academic writing task
    • Be able to summarise for academic purposes, selecting key points, information or central ideas.
  • UNIT 3 PREPARING A WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT
    • Understand how to use key information sources.
    • Understand why sources are acknowledged and referenced.
    • Understand a range of reading strategies.
    • Understand note-making methods.
    • Understand how to plan draft and produce a written assignment.
  • UNIT 4 INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
    • Understand the importance of research in psychology
    • Understand the main approaches in psychology
    • Understand ethical issues in psychological research
  • UNIT 5 UNDERSTANDING CRIME & DEVIANCE
    • Understand explanations of crime and deviance
    • Understand theories of crime and deviance
    • Understand perceptions of crime and deviance
  • UNIT 6 SOCIOLOGY OF THE FAMILY
    • Understand changes in family structure
    • Understand sociological explanations of the family to include Functionalist, feminist, interactionist and postmodern views
  • UNIT 7 MEASUREMENTS OF CRIME
    • Understand sources of crime statistics
    • Understand the reliability of published statistics on crime
    • Understand factors that are not reflected in criminal statistics
  • UNIT 8 SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
    • Understand theories of interpersonal relationships
    • Understand differing explanations and research evidence relating to the stages of relationships
    • Understand the effects of interpersonal relationships on the individual
  • UNIT 9 THE CRIMINOLOGY OF PRISONS
    • Understand the philosophical approaches to imprisonment
    • Understand the categories of prison and their relative costs
    • Understand the effects of imprisonment on the individual and society
  • UNIT 10 THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM (PSYCHOLOGY)
    • Understand the major subdivisions of the nervous system
    • Understand the structure and function of glial cells and neurons
  • UNIT 11 MENTAL HEALTH AND ILLNESS
    • Understand the difficulties in defining normality and abnormality
    • Understand a psychological disorder
    • Understand treatments used to treat people with psychological disorders
  • UNIT 12 SITUATIONAL ASPECTS OF CRIME
    • Understand the rationale for developing environmental methods of crime control
    • Understand how crime prevention can be addressed by manipulating risks and rewards for both victim and perpetrator
    • Understand environmental methods of crime control addressed through the theory of routine activity
  • UNIT 13 CRIME AND MEDIA
    • Understand the link between public perceptions of crime and criminality, and the news media
    • Understand the link between public perceptions of crime and criminality and the film and television media
    • Understand the link between public perceptions of crime and criminality and the media- social media
    • Understand the criminological research into the links between crime and media
  • UNIT 14 FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY
    • Understand the roles of the Forensic Psychologist
    • Understand how psychologists have contributed to jury behaviour and eyewitness memory
    • Understand offender profiling
    • Be able to apply an offender profiling technique
  • UNIT 15 CRIMINAL JUSTICE & SOCIAL POLICY
    • Understand models of crime prevention
    • Understand theories of crime control
    • Understand criminal justice theories as informed by different political perspectives
  • UNIT 16 CRIMINAL LAW & PROCEDURES.
    • Understand the criminal court process and its personnel
    • Understand sentencing policy and procedures
  • UNIT 17 EXTENDED ESSAY
    • Be able to develop and plan an extended essay on a chosen topic relevant to your Diploma title
    • Be able to produce an extended essay on a chosen topic relevant to your Diploma title
  • UNIT 18 STUDY SKILLS PORTFOLIO BUILDING
    • This unit requires you to build a portfolio of evidence which covers a range of different study skills. The different elements of the portfolio will be a combination of work that you have already completed as part of your programme, as well as reflective and evaluative commentary.
  • UNIT 19 HUMAN RIGHTS, THE INDIVIDUAL & THE LAW
    • Understand the general scope and application of the European Convention on Human Rights
    • Understand the impact and interrelationship of specific Convention Rights
    • Understand the status and effect of the Human Rights Act 1998
  • UNIT 20 CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY
    • Understand the arguments of Right and Left Realism
    • Understand key debates within feminist criminology
    • Understand arguments regarding human rights and crimes of the state
    • Understand current developments in criminology

ASSESSMENT METHOD

The study materials and all assessment for this course is through an online platform (VLE). You won’t need to purchase any books unless you wish to supplement these study materials.

In order to complete this diploma, you must achieve a total of 60 credits. 45 credit graded (taken from the subject specific areas of criminology studies, law, psychology, related studies, sociology and 15 credits are ungraded from the skills for learning and IAG assessments, sociology and psychology, criminological studies areas.

The Access to HE Diploma in Criminology is made up modules that fall under specific subject areas. The subjects are:

  • Skills for Learning
  • Psychology
  • Criminology Studies
  • Law
  • Related Studies
  • Sociology

You will study the online course materials and self-direct your study.

You will be required to submit assessments by a set deadline. To pass the module you must meet all the assessment criteria. After your first submission your assessor will provide feedback. At this point you will either have met all the pass criteria and your module will be graded or will be asked to resubmit your assessment taking on board the assessor’s feedback and you’ll be permitted to make further submission of your work. Once your module has been achieved you can then proceed to the next module of the course. You will continue in this way through until you have completed all modules of the course.

Once all of the assessments are complete and have gone through internal moderation and external moderation the College will then present your grades to the Awarding Body. Our verification dates usually fall in July and November.

The awarding organisation is AIM Qualifications and Assessment Group, who are a national Awarding Organisation, regulated by Ofqual, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) and Qualifications Wales, to develop and award nationally recognised qualifications.

Learners should ideally already have a GCSE in English and maths (grade A* - C or Level 4 – 8’ or an equivalent) or be working towards. We also ask that learners have the ambition to study a Criminology related degree at a higher education institute or university.

Access to Higher Education Diplomas are extensively accepted as an alternative to 'A Levels' for University entrance. The Access to Higher Education Diplomas have a reputation of successfully helping students to gain admission to University.

Learners should, however, be aware that each university apply their own admissions criteria, and we highly recommend that you research universities prior to applying to this course, to ensure your chosen university accepts this Diploma and the credits and graded units available for each subject area.

Whilst we have confidence that the Access to Higher Education Diplomas are compliant and sufficient to form part of a University application, East Sussex College will not be able to accept any liability for the inability of any Access to Higher Education learner to secure an offer from a Higher Education establishment due to the individual set requirement of each university or higher education institution.

STUDY TIME

Study time includes:

  • working through the interactive content
  • completing the assignments for each unit
  • reading assessor feedback and reviewing course material or other resources as directed
  • resubmitting your assignment where requested

DELIVERY STYLE

This online course differs to a classroom course, as you will not be taught. Instead, you will study independently following the online learning materials and completing assignments. Your dedicated unit assessor can be contacted through the message system on the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment). If you need any guidance, help, or wish to book in a phone or Teams video support call you can message your assessor or contact the admin team. We allow 10 months to work through the course, so it’s flexible in that you can study when you want eg the course platform is available 24/7 however you will have deadlines to meet to complete each unit assignment.

HOW DO I KNOW IF THIS IS THE RIGHT COURSE FOR ME?

East Sussex College offer a 14-day Cooling-Off Period for this course which enables you to assess whether both the course and the online mode of study is suitable for you. It also allows the College to assess your suitability, in particular whether you can produce work to meet the standards set by the awarding body.

You will be set a deadline within the cooling-off period to complete the first assignment.

Enrolment onto the qualification will take place once you have passed the first assignment. If you do not meet the pass criteria for the first assignment after 3 submissions, you won't be enrolled onto the course.

If you take out an Advanced Learner Loan to cover your fees, then this will be activated 14 days from the course start date.

If you wish to withdraw, you may cancel your enrolment by notifying the Administration Team in writing (by e-mail) prior to day 14 and you will owe nothing. After 14 days, you will owe the full course fee plus an administration charge, in line with the ESCG Tuition Fee Policy.

TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS

  • PC, Laptop, Tablet (smart phones are not recommended as aren’t fully compatible with the VLE)
  • Reliable internet access

PAYING FOR YOUR COURSE

• If you are 23 or under and have no prior Level 3 qualification or higher, then you may be entitled to a tuition fee waiver*
*subject to eligibility and availability check

• If you are over 19 years-old and have a full Level 3 qualification you have two options: an Advanced Learner Loan or self-funding.

ADVANCED LEARNER LOANS

  • This Government loan will be paid directly to the college and is linked to your attendance.
  • You will start to repay your loan when you start to earn over £25,000 per annum (correct at time of posting).
  • If you take out an Advanced Learner Loan to fund an Access to HE Diploma, then go on to complete a higher education course, you’ll be eligible to have the balance of your Advanced Learner Loan written off. However, if you don’t complete either course, you won’t be eligible to have the balance written off and will need to repay your loan in full.

For more information about Advanced Learner Loans visit:
Advanced Leaner Loan Guide to Terms and Conditions for courses starting on or after 1st August 2023

Download Enrolment Form Pre-Course Questionnaire UNit Breakdown Payment Options