Law with Criminology

Law and criminology together form one of the most coherent joint degree combinations available, because their subject matter is directly and productively related. Law provides the formal framework: the rules, institutions, and processes through which society defines what is prohibited, adjudicates disputes, and enforces consequences. Criminology approaches the same territory from a social scientific perspective, asking why certain behaviours come to be defined as criminal, why crime rates vary across time and place, and how the criminal justice system operates in practice, often very differently from how it appears in theory.

Together they give you both an insider and an outsider view of legal and criminal justice systems.

At Suffolk this three-year full-time programme balances academic legal study with the development of practical legal skills that enhance your employability, adopting flexible but rigorous learning and teaching approaches that maintain high academic standards. You will study the core areas of law alongside criminological theory, research methods, and the empirical study of crime and criminal justice. The combination develops both analytical and evidential skills, preparing you to think critically about law from the outside as well as to understand its internal logic from within.

You will develop skills in legal research, case analysis, statutory interpretation, and argumentation, alongside the social scientific methods and theoretical frameworks of criminology. This is a degree that produces graduates with a genuinely distinctive analytical perspective on the legal and criminal justice system.

Graduates of law and criminology programmes move into careers in criminal law practice (subject to further professional training), the criminal justice system, probation, social work, policy, journalism, advocacy, and research. Many also continue to postgraduate study in law, criminology, or social policy.