In November 2019, Policing Insight launched The Police Student, a content stream designed to support degree-entry recruits to the police services. Written by our Academic Editor Dr Carina O’Reilly, this content explores the syllabus that police students will encounter, providing accessible articles that can support their study.
Criminology is where the key questions about crime all come together. For you, as student police officers, it’s important to know why crime happens, and what you can do about it.”
Dr Carina O’Reilly,
Academic Editor
As well as being invaluable for those embarking on a police career, the topics covered are also informative for anyone with an interest in policing and criminal justice.
Following previous series on ‘Evidence-based policing’ and ‘Key issues in contemporary policing’, we have now launched The Police Student’s latest series – ‘Criminology in policing’.
Carina kicks off this new series with an article on ‘What is criminology, and how can it help police?’, which looks at the definition of criminology, the wide range of areas that feed into the discipline, and how the various approaches to criminal justice – including retributive justice, deterrence, and rehabilitation – impact on the role of policing.
There then follows an informative series of monthly articles looking at aspects of ‘Criminology in Policing’:
- Classical ideas – crime as a rational act
- Is it all in the genes? Biological theories of crime
- The ‘criminal mind’ – psychological explanations
- Sociological theories I: Social disorganisation – neighbourhoods and families
- Sociological theories II: Strain, subcultures and delinquency
- Looking at things from the side of the ‘underdog’ – labelling theory
- Who’s got the power and the money? Critical perspectives on crime
- Right realism – penal populism and the police
- Left realism – tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime?
- New penology – the management of risk
- Control theory and desisting from crime
- What about the victims?
How can I access The Police Student?
You can access all of The Police Student articles here. The content is for subscribers only; however, most UK police forces and relevant academic institutions have organisation-wide access to Policing Insight, so students, researchers, officers and staff are likely to have free access via their police force and/or academic institution.
Just register for a free account on Policing Insight using your organisation email address, and your account will be upgraded automatically to subscriber access.
If your organisation doesn’t subscribe, please contact us at [email protected]; we are talking to and adding new organisations every week. Find out more about subscribing here.
Other ways Policing Insight can support your study
Over and above The Police Student, Policing Insight is a valuable resource for police students with articles covering the latest thinking, research, policy and practice in policing.
The ‘Weekly academic summary’ brings you the latest research publications relevant to policing, criminal justice and crime, and our Media Monitor service is a daily brief and a searchable database with curated links to news, opinion, analysis, research and reports from mainstream and specialist media as well as from policing and criminal justice agencies and government.
Be sure to sign up for the Daily Brief and Weekly Digest newsletters to keep up to date!
Find out more about how Policing Insight supports police students here.
