I highly recommend checking out our programme of which there are many benefits. First of all,
Criminology and Criminal Justice is an applied social science, so you get to study both theory
and practice, you study Criminological Theory, why do people commit crime, how do we understand
crime as a society and then you apply this in practice to the Criminal Justice system and
how we respond to crime. It's also, needless to say, fascinating, very topical subject,
lots of stuff we'll be looking at on the course. You can study Surveillance, very
topical right now, Policing also Institutional Abuses, Restorative Justice, lots of things
that are very relevant right now and why we say Comparative Criminology and Criminal Justice is
because we look internationally, we give you a global understanding of the subject. And within
the Department of Law, we also have very very useful modules you can do that are more general,
including a Placement module, really really useful for people to be able to do an internship with
an NGO or Criminal Justice Agency and we also have a Professional Development module,
to help you prepare for your thesis and to think about what you want to do going forward.
We welcome applications from people with a range of backgrounds. Any social science, any
legal qualification, Humanities qualifications, if you have an Undergraduate degree in one of those
areas, with a minimum result of a 2:1, then you submit that alongside your Personal Statement to
meet the minimum criteria for the programme. Likewise, if you actually don't have a Level
8 degree, then you can still apply through a different route and you just have to contact
us and we can look at that and of course people who are active in Criminal Justice,
who are practitioners, policymakers across Youth Justice, Criminal Justice, other areas
of public service or NGO's, we would love to receive applications from yourselves as well.
A lot of people go on to work in Policy, to work in Research.
Either you do a PHD in a similar area or you could work in Policy or Research for an NGO,
for the Department of Justice, for Civil Service Departments in other countries, the
world is your oyster with a programme like this and indeed within the Criminal Justice system,
there are all sorts of opportunities to work in practice, Police Forces, Youth Justice work,
NGO's, are all increasingly looking for people with substantial qualifications in a Criminal
Justice or a social science area and indeed the same is true for international organisations,
the U.N, the International Criminal Court, the EU, all of these things are available to you. And if
it's that some of those don't sound directly 'Criminal Justicy', well the reality is that
almost every social science Master's Programme prepares you for almost anything in the public,
private and non-profit sectors. Apart from the small number of jobs where you really need a
specific programme, for example, to be a Social Worker you need to have the Social Work Masters,
really what I would recommend is thinking about a Master's programme if you want to
study social sciences, think about a Master's programme that you find really interesting,
that you're able to commit to, to really benefit from the teaching and reading you'll do and then
the world as I say is your oyster in terms of what you can do after that. So thank you very much and
please feel free to email me on ian.marder@mu.ie if you have any questions about the programme.