Our Crime Science MSc allows you to specialise in crime science, developing data-driven strategies and initiatives to prevent crime, and more effectively detect and arrest offenders. Unlike traditional criminology courses, this course focuses on how to prevent and detect crimes by treating the crime rather than the offender as the subject of analysis.
Combining expert analytical approaches from psychology, social science, statistics, mathematics, forensics, computing, geography and even architecture, you develop creative problem-solving approaches. You will learn to think critically about complex and evolving crime issues from low-level interpersonal and property crimes, right through to larger-scale financial crimes being committed by organised crime groups in cyberspace. You will then use advanced skills in statistical analysis and quantitative methods to design robust research projects to investigate them.
Using real-life case studies and initiative design frameworks, you’ll develop a deep understanding of the theories, processes and application of crime prevention. This will enable you to assess the impact of planned crime reduction initiatives and eventually generate your own novel proposals to address specific crime problems, making a positive difference to the lives of citizens and communities across the world.
Whilst studying this course, you will develop creative problem-solving approaches and learn to think critically about complex and evolving crime issues. You will also learn to use advanced skills in statistical analysis and quantitative methods to design robust research projects to investigate them. Using real-life case studies and initiative design frameworks, you’ll develop a deep understanding of theories, processes, and application of crime prevention.
Our graduates are fully equipped for exciting careers on the frontlines of crime science, in areas such as intelligence and crime prevention analysis. The knowledge and skills you’ll gain from this course will also qualify you for high-level jobs in research and policy, ranging from civil service and academia to NGOs and think tanks.
Our graduates go on to successful careers in crime prevention and detection, community safety, and policymaking, working in police forces, governmental institutions and private security and intelligence companies, in roles at employers such as the Metropolitan Police Service, British Transport Police and the Home Office. Other graduates also go on to study for PhD degrees at UCL and other institutions worldwide ( Graduate Outcomes survey carried out by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), looking at the destinations of graduates in the 2018–2024 cohorts ).
This degree offers you the following benefits and opportunities: