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Forensic Psychology (C8560)

15 credits, Level 6

Autumn teaching

In this module, you will explore how psychology can be used to understand and enhance aspects of police investigations and security screening, such as suspect and witness interviewing and the treatment of vulnerable people in the criminal justice system.

In addition, you will learn to evaluate connections between crime and mental illness, crime and criminal typologies and interventions to reduce reoffending.

The types of questions you will encounter during the module include:

• what are the options for reducing recidivism among prisoners?
• do children make reliable witnesses, or is their testimony not to be trusted?
• how can deception be detected by investigators?
• what kinds of biases and errors affect investigators of serious crimes?
• what is the relationship between mental illness and crime?
• to what extent does the media portrayal of 'psychopathy' have any basis in psychological research?

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 22 hours of contact time and about 128 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.