Criminology

Applications Open: 13th November, 2025

Applications Close: 31st January, 2026

Entry Requirements: These are unique to each subject (located on the subject information page).

How to Apply: Please apply via KentChoices

You should only choose one subject per options block with a maximum of three subjects overall.

This specification is designed to encourage candidates to:

• Demonstrate understanding of different types of crime, influences on perceptions of crime, and why some crimes are unreported.

• Gain an understanding of why people commit crime.

• Gain an understanding of the criminal justice system.

• Evaluate the effectiveness of social control to deliver criminal justice policy.

Students will learn about:

• Criminal behaviour and deviance, the social construction of criminality, theories of criminality, and criminal policy development

• Processes used for law-making, models of criminal justice, forms of social control, and the forms and aims of punishment.

• The wide range of different crimes and the reasons people have for not reporting such crimes.

• The complexity of behaviours and the social implications of such crimes and criminality.

• The criminal justice system, from the moment a crime has been identified to the verdict.

• Skills needed to examine information in order to review the justice of verdicts in criminal cases.

Unit 1: Exploring Business – 25% - Internal Assessment (C/W)

Unit 2: Developing a Marketing Campaign – 25% - External Assessment

Controlled Assessments/NEA (include percentage/weight)

Two units both worth 25% each of the entire course are controlled assessments

Grade 4 in English Language.

The main purpose of the WJEC Level 3 Applied Diploma in Criminology is to use the qualification to support access to higher education degree courses such as: criminology, criminology and criminal justice, criminology and psychology, law with criminology, criminology and sociology, psychology, and sociology.

The qualification also allows learners to gain the required understanding and skills to be able to consider employment within some aspects of the criminal justice system, e.g., the national probation service, the courts and tribunals service or the national offender management service.