The objective of the new degree in Criminology and Public Prevention Policies is for students to acquire knowledge in the fields of law, political and social sciences and biology and psychology and to be able to apply them in a specific field - criminality - in order to be able to give advice on crime and security to both the public administrations and judicial system and to businesses.
In order to train future criminologists, the UPF has designed the new degree placing particular emphasis on three areas. The first is criminological research: the modern world requires that discussions and policies are based on empirical data. That is why students at the UPF receive intensive training which enables them to design and carry out criminological research. The second area is an understanding of society and the response mechanisms for dealing with crime: in order to deal with the new criminal phenomena faced by our society, it is necessary to understand the social context in which they arise, and have sound training in law and the political sciences in order to be able to provide appropriate responses to these. Finally, training in biology and psychology provides knowledge of the biological and psychological foundations behind some anti-social behaviour and enables programmes to deal with them to be designed.
As well as providing specific knowledge, those in charge of the new degree in Criminology and Public Prevention Policies assure us that students are also able to understand the processes by which certain conclusions are reached, and that they will also be able to apply the skills they have acquired. As a result, as well as master classes, there are seminars with a maximum of twenty students to put the knowledge explained in the theoretical classes into practice.
In order to attain these teaching goals, the degree in Criminology and Public Prevention Policies has a highly qualified teaching staff, as can be seen by their numerous publications on the subject.
The degree in Criminology and Public Prevention Policies includes basic training subjects, compulsory training subjects and optional subjects. Graduates in Criminology are specialist experts due to their specific knowledge of criminality and the penal system, and are also individuals with comprehensive knowledge of society and its legal foundations, which is the framework in which crime takes place.
The basic training subjects provide transversal knowledge, i.e. the knowledge that will be used by the future criminologists and all graduates in social and legal sciences.
The compulsory subjects are the specific subjects that provide criminologists with essential knowledge, such as explanations for crime, crime prevention, policing systems, types of crimes and the sentencing system.
Finally, the optional subjects enable students to specialise in crime and the penal system, in criminological research or in criminal biology and psychology.
An external internship is compulsory during the final year. This will be guided by the academic tutor and supervised by a professional, in an institution (in the courts, prisons, police services or in private companies, for example), and there is also a compulsory end-of-degree dissertation.
Criminology is a discipline with a high level of internationalisation, and as such exchanges between students and lecturers with other European universities are encouraged. In recent years we prioritised teaching English for the study of criminological texts, and some subjects will be taught in English.
Graduates in Criminology and Public Prevention Policies will acquire the following skills: relate general knowledge and knowledge from various disciplines and apply them to the conditions for dealing with the problem of criminality; manage information; present ideas in a structured manner, both orally and in writing; teamwork; acquire initiative in order to produce proposals; and the ability to analyse social problems in order to seek effective and fair solutions to them.