Leading Diverse Teams in a Complex Environment (45 credits): This module will focus on communicating specialist knowledge and understanding of leadership and management theory, policy and practice within the Criminal Justice System context. It will provide an opportunity for aspiring leaders to reflect and interrogate practices in leading and managing practitioner staff providing an overview of the critical challenges, debates, dilemmas and tensions for policy and practice leaders.
Crime, Community Justice and Reflective Practice (15 credits): This module will look at concepts of justice and systems of criminal justice and think about how to lead in criminal justice. It will look at how inequalities (such as race, gender, and social class contribute to crime and victimhood and consider the lived experience of the criminal justice system. It will establish reflective practice as a key skill and apply reflection to real world issues.
Risk Management and Desistance Approaches (15 credits): This module presents academic research, knowledge and understanding to better equip professionals to examine, discuss, debate and reflect upon the core components of risk management and desistance approaches. The module develops a critical understanding of risk assessment, risk management and desistance approaches utilised to underpin practice across the spectrum of risk, explores the impact of sources of bias, error and discrimination in risk decision making and examines risk and quality, including quality assuring risk practice and strategies to manage staff completing core risk assessment and risk management tasks.
Penology and the Sentence of the Court (15 credits): This module will engage with penological theories and will compare and contrast the role of formal and informal sanctions in both the custodial and community environments. Learners will consider issues related to risk and power in prisons and relate this to their own professional practice. The approach to incarceration in England and Wales will be positioned in a global context through comparisons with key countries to explore the use of incarceration as a tool of political and social control.
Advanced Criminological Theory (15 credits): The module enables learners to develop an understanding of key schools of criminological thought that underpin perspectives on crime, deviance and social control. Learners will be encouraged to apply these explanations to everyday practices in the Criminal Justice System. Learners will develop a critical awareness of the rehabilitation paradigm and its place within the history of effective practice in community justice. Theories and models of desistance are interrogated in the contemporary social and political context to develop a critical awareness of current thinking about tackling recidivism.
Dissertation (45 credits): An opportunity for learners to design and undertake a substantial piece of independent study on a topic of their own choice. Learners will develop their knowledge and understanding of Action research and the role of the Practitioner-Academic as a particular type of applied criminologist.
Option Modules: Depending on how many learners we have on the cohort, we may be able to offer learners a choice of module from a number of options which will run subject to efficiency and availability.
The optional modules include:
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- Probation Practice and Management (30 credits): This module will start by examining issues that future leaders will need to appraise themselves of including the evolving landscape of Probation in England and Wales before moving on to consider how these changes have affected professional identity.
- Leadership and Management in Contemporary Policing (30 credits): The purpose of the module is to critically examine and evaluate the key issues and challenges facing contemporary policing in a civil, neo-liberal, welfare society. Furthermore, to critically reflect and analysis how the multi-faceted challenges identified can be mitigated by effective leadership and management, so that policing can provide the service expected by the public.
- Leadership and Management in Contemporary Criminal Investigation (30 credits): The purpose of the module is to critically examine and evaluate the key issues and challenges facing contemporary criminal investigation in a civil, neo-liberal, welfare society. Furthermore, to critically reflect and analyse how the multi-faceted challenges identified can be mitigated by effective leadership and management, so that a sustainable criminal investigation can be conducted to the expectations and satisfaction of the public.
- Global Criminal Justice Perspectives (30 credits): The purpose of the module is to place criminal justice development in a global context and to explore the implications for strategy, policy and practice. The module will examine and analyse the international justice framework of human rights, United Nations Treaty and charter-based mechanisms, the impact of the globalisation of crime, finance, narcotics and the internet, people smuggling, exploitation of women and children and accessing international organisations, identifying leadership and management links for academic, professional and management development.