Course overview
Are you interested in a career in the police or as a civilian or corporate investigator?
Do you want to develop the skills needed to carry out investigations within law enforcement organisations or businesses to help solve and prevent crime, fraud and corruption?
Our Policing and Investigation degree brings together the theory, policy and practice of policing and investigations, criminology, forensics and criminal justice.
This four-year course includes an initial full-time Foundation Year and offers an alternative route into university and gaining a degree.
This route is for you if you do not have the necessary qualifications or don’t yet feel ready to begin degree-level study, or are returning to education and would like some support to get up to speed with learning in a university setting.
The Foundation Year in Criminology, Policing and Sociology will allow you to develop your academic skills and confidence as well as introduce you to key concepts, debates and skills that will support and inform your subsequent years of undergraduate study.
Following successful completion of your Foundation Year, you’ll progress onto Year 1 of our Policing and Investigation BA (Hons) degree.
This course is subject to validation. You can still apply for this course while it is being approved.
About this course
During your Foundation Year, you will undertake modules to enable you to enhance your academic skills and equip you with the tools you’ll need to study with confidence. You’ll carry out a personal project so you can study an area of interest related to your chosen future subject specialisation.
You'll be introduced to key concepts and theories in criminology, policing and sociology including patterns of crime, issues in modern-day policing and social inequalities. You'll also examine how policymakers are responding to key societal problems and apply sociological and criminological theories to social problems, such as criminality and inequality.
Following successful completion of the Foundation Year, you’ll progress onto the first year of our Policing and Investigation BA (Hons) degree.
On this course, you’ll study criminal and corporate investigation and the investigative process. You’ll gain a solid foundation in policing and the wider Criminal Justice System and the contemporary challenges facing police officers, criminal investigators and civilian investigators.
Academics who have held senior-level positions in policing organisations will share their experience with you as you explore interviewing, victimology and forensic psychology and their application across all areas of policing and investigation work.
Throughout your studies, you’ll consider a range of investigative case studies and explore historical, empirical and theoretical approaches to key issues in evidence gathering and criminal justice.
You’ll undertake professional work placements during your degree, so you’ll be able to apply your theoretical knowledge to the real-world and gain invaluable experience relevant to your future career.
In your final year, you can choose to study topics that interest you the most, including murder investigations, forensics, domestic abuse or sexual violence.
By the time you finish your studies, we aim to have helped you to become a confident, knowledgeable graduate with the investigative mindset needed for a successful career in policing or investigation.
Why study with us?
- Build your self-confidence, academic skills and core subject knowledge in preparation for progression onto degree-level study.
- Develop the critical thinking and decision-making skills needed for criminal and corporate investigations.
- Learn from academics with extensive, senior-level policing and investigations experience.
- Graduate with professional work experience and a network of contacts, thanks to the placements included with your degree.
- Prepare for a career in police and investigation work within the police service or with public and private employers in law enforcement, investigations or other professional services.
Course Modules
You will study a variety of modules across your programme of study. The module details given below are subject to change and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this course of study.
Foundation Year
During your Foundation Year, you'll study four core modules.
Academic Skills and Studying with Confidence (Core)
We'll help you develop core academic skills such as using electronic resources, planning and note-taking, communication skills related to essay and report writing and delivering presentations.
You'll learn to manage your time, prioritise tasks and manage stress, and become more confident in engaging with collaborative learning, debates, discussions and critical reflection.
Professional Development and Project (Core)
In the first semester you'll get support through personal tutoring and learning hub liaison.
You'll study areas of interest related to your chosen degree specialisation so subject content will be tailored to you.
You'll have workshop-based tuition covering assessments and projects.
You'll focus on existing academic literature and secondary sources in your project, and you can negotiate what format you present your work in.
Foundations in Sociology and Policing (Core)
You'll look at social inequalities in society, how they can be explained, and current trends and issues in modern-day policing.
You'll draw on the work of sociologists, academics and criminologists to investigate these issues.
We'll cover concepts such as socialisation, norms and values, social control, status, inequality, crime, deviance, victimisation, retribution and non-crime-related social trends.
We'll try to address social problems, including inequality and criminality, and explore topical areas related to sociology, policing and crime.
Foundations in Criminology (Core)
You'll look at patterns of crime, social control, deviance, victimisation, the media and punishments.
We'll examine crime statistics, self-report studies and non-crime-related social trends.
You'll try to make sense of these areas using introductory-level theories from key academics and criminologists.
You'll also review how policy-makers attempt to address social problems such as criminality.
Year 1
During your first year, you'll study four core modules.
Research Methods and Academic Skills (Core)
You’ll be introduced to the research methods and academic skills for policing, including research activities, how to review and assess literature and case law, to enable you to develop critical arguments and draw conclusions.
You’ll demonstrate autonomy, as well as accountability and working with others in a study skills context. You’ll present research on the identified issue with proposals to tackle it using a range of sources.
Year 2
During your second year, you'll study four core modules.
Victimology (Core)
Get an understanding of the history and theories of victimology, the term 'victim' and the social construction of victims.
You'll reflect on the relationship between social inequalities and victimisation in domestic violence, hate crime, sexual violence and corporate crime.
Learn about victimology theories and the experiences and interactions of the victim for both the crime and the criminal justice system.
You'll be encouraged to think critically of the term 'victim' and consider how to improve the victim's experiences.
Year 3
During your final year, you'll study three core modules and will be required to choose two option modules.
Crime, Media and Culture (Option)
Understand why we view criminals and crime in certain ways, due to cultural factors and the media.
Think critically about crime, crime control and its media coverage.
We'll look at contemporary criminological theories, exploring how crime is constructed and defined by subcultures, the nation-state, the criminal justice system and corporations.
We'll also explore how these theories help us interpret media depictions of crime and crime control.
You'll analyse how mainstream media and social media shape our collective (mis)understanding of a range of crime and crime control.
Professional work placements
Experience matters. That's why we embed professional work placements within our standard undergraduate degrees.
How does it work?
Careers and Placements will work with you to find your perfect placement or help you arrange your own, whether that's in Leeds, another part of the UK or even abroad. You will be able to take part in a series of workshops, events and live ‘employer challenges’ to boost your confidence and prepare you for your placement.
During your placement, you will have an opportunity to gain degree-relevant work experience, build your knowledge of career sectors and secure valuable employer references and industry contacts. This experience will help you to shape your career decisions and find the right path for you.
You will undertake professional work placements to enhance your learning and support you to develop key employability skills and relevant experience for your chosen career. Your placement could be with a variety of organisations within the statutory and voluntary sector involved with investigations, victim support, miscarriages of justice, addiction services and many others.
To find out how we can help you make your career ambitions a reality, visit:
Learning and Teaching
At Leeds Trinity we aim to provide an excellent student experience and provide you with the tools and support to help you achieve your academic, personal and professional potential.
Our Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy delivers excellence by providing the framework for:
- high quality teaching
- an engaging and inclusive approach to learning, assessment and achievement
- a clear structure through which you progress in your academic studies, your personal development and towards professional-level employment or further study.
We have a strong reputation for developing student employability, supporting your development towards graduate employment, with relevant skills embedded throughout your programme of study.
We endeavour to develop curiosity, confidence, courage, ambition and aspiration in all students through the key themes in our Learning and Teaching Strategy:
- Student Involvement and Engagement
- Inclusion
- Integrated Programme and Assessment Experience
- Digital Literacy and Skills
- Employability and Enterprise
To help you achieve your potential we emphasise learning as a collaborative process, with a range of student-led and real-world activities. This approach ensures that you fully engage in shaping your own learning, developing your critical thinking and reflective skills so that you can identify your own strengths and weaknesses, and use the extensive learning support system we offer to shape your own development.
We believe the secret to great learning and teaching is simple: it is about creating an inclusive learning experience that allows all students to thrive through:
- Personalised support
- Expert lecturers
- Strong connections with employers
- An international outlook
- Understanding how to use tools and technology to support learning and development
Programme delivery
Your time on campus, learning through in-person teaching, is at the heart of your academic experience and the way we deliver our programmes. This is supported and further enhanced by additional engagement activities and opportunities provided online and through digital teaching materials. This blended approach seeks to ensure a positive learning and teaching student experience.
Your programme of study has been carefully designed around a three-phase model of delivery:
- Preparation: You will be given clear tasks to support you in preparing for live teaching. This could include watching a short-pre-recorded lecture, reading a paper or text chapter or preparing other material for use in class.
- Live: All your live teaching will be designed around active learning, providing you with valuable opportunities to build on preparation tasks, interact with staff and peers, and surface any misunderstandings.
- Post: Follow-up activities will include opportunities for you to check understanding, for staff to receive feedback from you and your peers to inform subsequent sessions, and for you to apply learning to new situations or context.
Preparation, Live and Post teaching and learning and the digital materials used will vary by course, but will be designed to help you structure your learning, take a full and active part in your course, and apply and test your developing knowledge and skills.
Assessment
A variety of assessment methods are used, matched to the learning outcomes for your programme, allowing you to apply and demonstrate the full range of knowledge and skills that you have developed.
For more details on specific assessment methods for this course contact hello@leedstrinity.ac.uk
Entry Requirements
Leeds Trinity University is committed to recruiting students with talent and potential and who we feel will benefit greatly from their academic and non-academic experiences here. We treat every application on its own merits; we value highly the experience you illustrate in your personal statement.
Information about the large range of qualifications we accept, including A-Levels, BTECs and T Levels, can be found on our entry requirements page. If you need additional advice or are taking qualifications that are not covered in the information supplied, please contact our Admissions Office.
| Qualification | Grade |
|---|---|
| UCAS tariff | 48 |
| GCSE requirements | GCSE English Language at grade C or 4 (or higher) |
Applications are welcome from mature students with few formal qualifications.
Any previous relevant work experience and learning will be assessed and, where appropriate, we may offer an alternative way to assess suitability to study.
This course is not available to students on a Student Route Visa.
Fees and finance
Funding
UK Home Students:
Tuition fees cost £9,250 a year for this course in 2024/2025.
Part-time tuition fees will be prorated accordingly to the number of credits you're studying.
Depending on government policy, tuition fees may change in future years.
Tuition fees for 2025/26 entry will be set in summer 2024.
Living costs, e.g. accommodation, travel, food, will also need to be taken into consideration.
Leeds Trinity offers a range of bursaries and scholarships to help support students while you study.
Additional costs
We advise students that there may be additional course costs in addition to annual tuition fees. These include:
- Books - recommended and required reading lists will be provided at the start of your course. All the books and e-books are available from our Library to borrow but you may choose to purchase your own.
- Print costs - the University provides students with a £6 printing credit each academic year which can be topped up either on campus or online.
How to apply
For full-time undergraduate courses, you apply through UCAS. That's the University and Colleges Admissions Service.
On your application form, you'll need to know our institution code - it's L24 - and the course code. If you click through to the UCAS website using the button below, it'll take you to the right place with all the information you need.
You'll need to write a personal statement - we've prepared a guide to help you.
Although the equal consideration deadline has passed for 2024 entry there are still ways to apply now.
If you included five choices on your application, have received decisions from all five, and weren’t accepted, or if you declined the offers you received, you will be able to use Extra which opens on 28 February. If you use Extra to add another choice you cannot reverse this to go back to your original five choices.
If you did not use all your choices in your initial application, you don't need to use Extra, you can just sign in to your application and add another choice, as long as it’s before 30 June, and you’ve not accepted or declined any offers.
If you don’t hold any offers after 5 July, you will be able to add an additional choice using Clearing.
Applications are not yet open for courses starting in September 2025. You can register and start your application for 2025 from 14 May 2024, although you cannot submit it until later in the year. The UCAS application deadline for courses starting in September 2025 is 29 January 2025.
There's lots more information about the application process on the UCAS website, or you can get in touch with our admissions team who will be happy to help:
- call 0113 283 7123 (Monday to Thursday, 9.00am to 5.00pm, or Friday 9.00am to 4.00pm)
- email admissions@leedstrinity.ac.uk
This course is not available to students on a Student Route Visa.
Graduate opportunities
Providing you with the opportunity to develop the professional skills and experience you need to launch your career is at the heart of everything we do at Leeds Trinity University.
A degree in policing and investigation can prepare you for a career in the police or probation service, but also offers routes to an investigative career within government or other public or private sector organisations.
Employment opportunities also exist with the National Crime Agency, government departments such as the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC (investigating fraud or smuggling); banks and financial institutions; insurance companies; legal firms; loss prevention and private security companies; private investigation firms and fraud and intelligence departments of high-profile retail businesses.
Alternatively, you may choose to continue on to postgraduate study or academic research into an area of policing and investigations, criminology, forensics and criminal justice.
After you graduate, Careers and Placements will help you as you pursue your chosen career through our mentoring scheme, support with CV and interview preparation and access to graduate employability events.
To find out how we can help you make your career ambitions a reality, visit:
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