Undergraduate LLB (Hons)
Law and Criminology
Better understand crime in both a societal and legal context to effect change and improve lives.
Better understand crime in both a societal and legal context to effect change and improve lives.
Kent Law School brings the study of law to life and prepares you for a successful career in law. Our law and criminology LLB develops your critical and analytical skills by studying law through both a societal and legal lens.
You will have the opportunity to get real, hands-on experience, with our students getting to work on real cases in our Law clinic. Our law and criminology degree prepares you for a career in law and opens the door to countless other opportunities, so you can make your career your own.
At Kent, you’ll be taught by world-leading academics and experienced criminal justice professionals – including those drawn from Kent Police, the London Metropolitan Police, HMP Prisons Service, the Ministry of Justice, the Probation Service, the legal profession and charities supporting victims and communities.
Ultimately our diverse, international community of staff and students provides a dynamic and engaging environment to gain the professional legal skills and knowledge you need to effect change in the places you want to see it.
Helping students to make career choices, understand the legal working world or to navigate the application process for both work and study.
for research quality in The Complete University Guide 2025.
A partnership between students, academics, solicitors and barristers providing free legal advice and representation to those unable to afford it.
A physical and online space for law students designed to offer support with anything related to your academic study.
Take part in co-curricular activities including lawyering skills modules in Mooting, Mock Trial Advocacy, and Negotiation.
The University will consider applications from students offering a wide range of qualifications. All applications are assessed on an individual basis but some of our typical requirements are listed below. Students offering qualifications not listed are welcome to contact our Admissions Team for further advice. Please also see our general entry requirements.
Law with a Foundation Year is an excellent conversion course for applicants who don't meet the academic requirements for direct entry but have shown academic ability in non-science subjects.
AAB
DDD
136 Tariff points from your IB Diploma, Typically H6, H6, H6 or equivalent
English Language at grade C/4
Pass the University of Kent International Foundation Programme.
The University will consider applicants holding T level qualifications in subjects closely aligned to the course.
Pass the Access to HE Diploma with 45 credits at level 3, of which 30 should be passed at Distinction, 12 at Merit, and 3 at Pass; or 33 at Distinction, 6 at Merit, and 6 at Pass.
The following modules are what students typically study, but this may change year to year in response to new developments and innovations.
What are the institutions that make up the English legal system? Who are the participants in these institutions, and what are their roles? Do these institutions ensure that justice is done in individual cases?
You'll engage with a critical introduction to the main institutions of the English legal system. Explore how these structures and institutions are the result of historically contingent events, and what their limitations are. You'll also learn about legal method. Law, like other disciplines, has its own method which its practitioners apply in their working lives, for example constructing legal arguments based on the reading and interpretation of key texts and sources.
Throughout the module, you'll see how law is an interpretative exercise, and you'll be provided with key skills needed for your legal studies. This includes how to read, understand and summarise a legal case and Acts of Parliament, and how to conduct legal research. You'll complete the module with the fundamentals in legal method and legal skills you will be expected to know and build on for the rest of your degree.
What is law? What is its relationship with society? How does it operate? What is the source of its authority? The ‘common sense’ or ‘liberal’ view of law, often represented by legal institutions and legal actors, is that law is neutral, rational, objective, fair, and independent of political, economic or social imperatives.
In this module you'll learn about this fundamental liberal account of the nature of law. But you'll also learn about alternative ‘critical’ claims about law, which challenge this legal ‘common sense’ by highlighting its contexts, contradictions, omissions and limitations. These critical arguments step outside law’s own, internal viewpoint in order to reveal how its rules, procedures and enforcement are informed and shaped by relationships of power. The module introduces you to the critical legal approach, its methods and the foundational conceptual tools that will underpin your study of law at Kent.
What is the legal structure of the state in the United Kingdom? How is the power of the state encoded? What is the authority of government to act and what are the legal limits on those powers?
You'll gain an understanding of the fundamentals of public law, the key legal concepts deployed in this field and an insight into the procedural requirements that deliver accountability. Engaging in a critical introduction to the key features of the state, you'll learn about the legal powers government exercises. You'll also develop your ability to identify the key concepts of the constitution through your study and analysis of major constitutional cases, academic literature and parliamentary documents. Learning to interpret the open-ended nature of constitutional reasoning in an uncodified constitution, you'll also enhance your ability to critique the reasoning and conclusions of judgments in the cases that you analyse. This will equip you with an understanding of the mechanisms of legal accountability of public bodies and provide you with a repertoire of key legal concepts in the public law domain.
From commonplace, simple transactions, such as purchasing a bus ticket or a chocolate bar from a vending machine, to high-stakes commercial agreements, contracts govern countless interactions. You'll undertake a comprehensive study of the law of contract and its pervasive and essential role in our daily lives. You'll develop knowledge and understanding of the principles and theory of contract law and their application.
This module begins by introducing you to the law of contract, locating it within private law and looking at the historical development and its functions in the modern world. Thereafter, you'll explore the doctrine and problem-solving in contract law by considering the lifecycle of contracts, e.g., the formation of a contract, requirements for its enforceability, its terms and policing of bargaining behaviour, potential performance issues, its subsequent discharge, and remedies. You'll then focus on contract theory (e.g. freedom of contract and its limits), overlaying the doctrine studied with a basic theoretical framework and ground your understanding of contract law and contractual relationships.
Crime. It’s in the news. It’s on our screens. It’s happening all around us, sometimes to us, and sometimes by us. But what makes a crime a crime? As one of the foundations of legal knowledge, you'll master the core principles of criminal law and explore a range of offences tried in our courts on a daily basis. You'll be able to break down offences such as murder and theft into their constituent parts and apply them to an array of factual scenarios. You'll form the analytical skills necessary to advise parties on criminal liability and defences. While applying statutes and case law, you'll effectively communicate cogent arguments both orally and in writing. At the end of this module, you'll be able to evaluate the effectiveness of criminal law in the context of our criminal justice system as a whole and be equipped with the building blocks to analyse and evaluate any criminal offence.
How can we explain criminal, deviant and harmful behaviour? You'll explore a range of criminological, sociological and psychological ideas that attempt to answer this question. Each week, you'll be introduced to academic theories designed to explain the causes of crime, deviance, and/or harm. You'll be taught about the contents of such ideas, the historical context from which they have emerged, approaches to crime control they have been used to support, and their apparent strengths and limitations.
Focusing on theories that have emerged between the late-18th century and the modern era, you'll engage with a range of debates around crime and punishment that have raged throughout criminology’s history – and debates that, importantly, continue to shape ongoing understandings of (and responses to) crime and harm in the contemporary social world.
What is property? What is the distinct character and effect of property rights compared to contractual and other personal rights? You'll be introduced to the nature of property generally, and then go on to focus on one particular form of property - ‘real’ property, or land, as distinguished from personal property. You'll examine the system of land registration in English law, and how this shapes the ability to enforce interests in land against others.
Various types of interests in land will be studied, to enable you to develop an in-depth understanding of English land law and an ability to apply your knowledge to legal problems relating to interests in land. You'll be encouraged to consider the politics of real property law and the impact of economic logics in this area of law. Exploring how property and land law shape relationships between people, you'll consider challenging subjects such as squatting, leases, and the financing of the family home.
What is equity? Does equity still have a role in modern law? What is a trust? How have trusts changed to meet changing social and economic needs? Do equitable doctrines and remedies and trusts law protect the vulnerable or protect the powerful?
Equity is a distinctive legal tradition in common law systems, with its own concepts, techniques, doctrines and remedies. You'll learn about the historical emergence of ‘equity’ rooted in the concept of ‘conscience’ and examine the fate of equity in the English legal system and other common law jurisdictions. You'll discover developments in equitable remedies concerned with remedying unconscionable conduct and abuses of power in private transactions, and the social, political and economic contexts of these developments. Arguably equity’s most important contribution is the trust. You'll learn the anatomy of the trust, how to create valid trusts, the obligations that trustees are subject to, and how these have changed to meet the evolving needs and desires of property owners and markets. In considering these transformations, you'll develop your ability to understand and critically assess the role of equity and trusts in contemporary law and society and reflect on the nature of private law.
How much power does the EU really have over its member states? When national interests and EU law clash, who should ultimately have the final say? You'll be introduced to EU law, by examining its foundational principles, key doctrines, and the institutions that shape its operation. In exploring the core aspects of EU law, you will gain a deeper understanding of:
Through analysing these substantive areas, you'll develop essential skills in applying legal principles, presenting complex arguments effectively, and evaluating the broader social, economic, and legal implications of EU law.
Exploring a range of topics that serve as topical case studies, you'll be introduced to a range of contemporary issues within the field of criminology and criminal justice. With each topic chosen because of its significance to emerging debates and perspectives within criminological studies, you'll examine these debates and discover how contemporary criminological ideas and concepts can help us understand real-world events. You'll also learn how policy and practice impacts our understanding of key theories and concepts.
You'll be asked to watch or listen to media content that relates to the topic for each week, while discussing how its content relates to criminological issues and the topics covered for that week. You'll explore the issues on the module from a range of theoretical and conceptual perspectives, evaluating the merits of these approaches and analysing their importance in relation to the case studies presented. Indicative case studies may include issues such as: urban crime, crime in the global south, environmental crime, crimes of the powerful.
In what ways are various inequalities relevant to crime and the delivery of criminal justice? You'll examine the complex relationship between social inequalities and the criminal justice system, focusing on how disparities in socioeconomic status, race, gender, and other factors contribute to patterns of crime, victimisation, and access to justice. Through theoretical analysis and empirical research, you'll explore the ways in which structural inequalities intersect with criminal justice processes, shaping both the commission of crimes and responses to crime within society. By critically engaging with issues of inequality, this module aims to foster a deeper understanding of the challenges and possibilities for achieving justice in diverse communities.
Approximately 75 percent of the world’s legal systems do not belong to the common law tradition but to the civil law tradition, which means that they were shaped not by English law but by Roman law, either directly (e.g.: France, Germany, Spain) or through colonisation (e.g.: Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico). Students aiming to operate on the international scene in whatever capacity are bound to come into contact with the civil law tradition.
You're introduced to the very different ways in which civil law governments, judges, lawyers and law professors think about the law. The materials and coursework are designed for those destined to spend time in a civil law jurisdiction, whether during a year abroad as part of your studies or in your future working life. It is also intended for students enrolling in the module out of an interest in foreign and/or comparative law.
How are work relationships regulated? You will gain a solid understanding of the principles of individual labour law as well as the importance of the employment relationship and the employment contract in the current social, political and economic context. As well as developing a detailed knowledge of fundamental aspects of labour law, you will be introduced to broader conceptual, critical and evaluative perspectives on the labour market and workplace regulation. You will integrate legal analysis and practical legal skills with a contextual and interdisciplinary understanding of debates around labour regulation. Key aspects of the modern employment relationship covered in the module will include the contract of employment (for example, its formation and its content, and the importance of employment status) and statutory employment protections (for example, unfair dismissal and redundancy protection regulations).
How is medical practice and decision-making influenced by bioethics, law and health policy? This module considers the legal regulation of medical practice in its ethical, socio-economic, and historical contexts. It draws on a range of critical, contextual, and interdisciplinary perspectives. You’ll learn about dominant traditions of bioethical theory and the major principles of medical law. Your knowledge and critical legal abilities will develop through discussions of ethical concepts and theories like consequentialism, virtue ethics, altruism, care ethics, deontology, justice, autonomy, beneficence, and non-maleficence. You’ll learn to critically analyse legal, social, and ethical tensions found in issues such as medical malpractice, consent to treatment and capacity, confidentiality, and clinical research. Module content will respond to changes in law, health policy and bioethics and to changes in health care services resulting from, for example, pandemics, NHS resourcing issues, national inquiries, and emerging clinical developments.
Addressing KLS in November 2021, the President of the UK Supreme Court, Lord Reed, identified jurisprudence as one of only three modules necessary for a future-proof law degree. Why? Because jurisprudence is immensely practical. It seeks to understand and consider the internal point of view of judges, practitioners and other legal actors, who want not predictions of the legal claims they will make, but arguments about what the law requires them to do and why. The subject matter is therefore not tort law, or contract, or crime, but law itself, seen from the inside, and located critically in historical and cultural context. In this way, Jurisprudence builds on and draws together all of the core modules, exploring the philosophical reasons why judges disagree within and across judgments. The grasp of the strikingly different and often hidden commitments jurisprudence reveals will benefit you in deeper understanding of your discipline and degree, in your ability to better comprehend legal materials, and in your production of more persuasive legal arguments in education and practice.
Justice is one of the most important concepts in legal and political thought, but what is justice and why does it matter? Is there just one type of justice? Is going to court the only or best option for achieving justice? You will tackle these questions and many more through an in-depth examination of the concept justice, exploring law’s ability and suitability to respond to issues of justice and reflecting on alternative ways of responding to injustice.
You will start by exploring theoretical accounts of justice, such as those by Rawls, Nielsen, Sandel and Nussbaum and different approaches such as corrective, distributive and restorative justice. You will then apply this theoretical foundation to a series of case studies that identify examples of injustice; critically evaluating possible responses such as court-based action, social justice movements, and restorative justice projects. You'll build on the critical examination of law and legal systems undertaken in your earlier studies and take these ideas further, offering a new method of critical study. Focusing on one concept, justice, allows a more detailed and in-depth examination of this fundamental legal concept, creating space for engagement with a wider variety of theoretical approaches to justice and the opportunity to develop stronger skills of critique essential for success in your degree.
Devoted entirely to developing your practical skill in argument, your engagement and practice in this module builds ability and understanding that will benefit you in successful legal professional practice - and across many other areas of employment and everyday activity. Despite frequent mention in educational and employment contexts (where the skill is often tested as part of an interview process), few graduates have received the formal training needed to present knowledgeable, winning argument consistently and with self-belief. You gain a critical edge, empowering you to engage in argument effectively in any situation, both by developing the skill of presenting a compelling case and by sharpening your awareness of when poor or underhand arguments are being used against you, enabling you to call these out wherever they arise. Requiring no previous knowledge of any area of law, you will develop expertise in strategy, logic, fallacy identification and rhetoric from the ground up, in the only pure skills module in the law curriculum.
From war, poverty and genocide to decolonisation, trade and climate change, an understanding of the fundamentals of international law is essential to anyone wishing to make sense of the biggest challenges our world is facing. You'll be led step-by-step through international law’s foundational principles, sources and institutions, as developed, demanded, violated and enforced by states and various non-state actors. The aim is to familiarise you with the distinctive logic of international law – a logic that underpins every one of its specific regimes (such as international humanitarian law, the law of the sea or international investment law) and conditions the response of states, international courts and multilateral institutions to the problems these regimes address. You’ll learn how to apply this logic, bringing international law to bear on real-world politics, economics and history. But we’ll also reverse this relationship, bringing politics, economics and history to bear on international law in order to contextualise and think more critically about a discipline whose benevolence often goes unquestioned. Is international law always ‘part of the solution’, or might it be implicated in the very problems it is called upon to solve?
Why study Animal Law? Animal Law is a fast-developing field of study, scholarship and practice. Studying one of only a few courses if its type currently offered at a UK law school, you'll be introduced to important domestic, European and international legal instruments governing the treatment of non-human animals. You are encouraged to critically assess key theories developed in moral philosophy and ethics that have been a source of inspiration for many animal rights lawyers. You will explore and discuss, through a range of concrete examples, the extent to which ethical, historical, socio-economic, political, religious and other factors have shaped the development of Animal Law in the UK and around the world.
Can justice only be delivered in a court room? Is justice delayed, justice denied? What is the alternative? With an increasing demand on our civil justice system to deliver timely and cost-effective justice, you will evaluate whether there is a more appropriate way of resolving disputes to limit some of the damage caused by choosing only to litigate. You will master the core principles of appropriate dispute resolution (ADR) and using case law, identify how shifting judicial attitudes have led to an alternative to the court room. You will explore how ADR informs our understanding of broader themes of justice and learn how to advise a client as to the merits of ADR. By the end of this module, you will also develop the necessary practical skills to analyse and resolve a dispute through an understanding of various alternative dispute resolution processes such as mediation and negotiation before learning how to conduct a successful arbitration.
Can juries understand complex scientific evidence? A new technique for matching ear prints is developed - who decides when this new technique is sufficiently reliable to be used in court – scientists or judges? Does the CSI Effect really exist?
You will be examining these questions and more during the term, considering how criminal law makes use of science during the trial process. Forensic evidence is a rapidly developing area, new techniques such as digital biometric data are increasingly presented as evidence. This rapid expansion from fingerprints to DNA through to digital data has resulted in forensic evidence becoming increasingly debated in both the media and by the courts – from articles hailing DNA profiling as uncovering miscarriages of justice to those questioning a jury’s ability to understand highly complex scientific evidence.
You will critically investigate how different forms of forensic evidence are used, the reliability of scientific techniques, and their value and place within the criminal justice system. We will develop these ideas through engaging with contemporary issues of forensic evidence, placing them within the wider social and transnational context. This has included studies of the use of facial recognition technology, the idea of the CSI Effect, probabilities in a legal context, and sharing evidence across jurisdictions.
What next for policing? How have recent scandals damaged its reputation? Does the institution still have legitimacy and can it continue to ‘police by consent’? You will address these questions and many more.
You’ll explore contemporary events which have shaped the modern practice of policing, and the implications that these have for police discretion. You will be encouraged to think critically about issues of legitimacy, policing by consent, community-based policing and state power.
Each week on the module, we’ll explore the ways in which these developments have had an impact on the routine, everyday social world of police officers and the communities that they serve. Focusing on important socio-historical developments in policing, you will be equipped to critically engage with the debates surrounding policing in modern society.
Why and how did today’s criminal justice system in Britain come to take the shape it has? Why was a modern police force introduced? Why was there a shift away from transportation and corporal/capital punishments? How and why do some things become criminalised and others decriminalised over time? Over the course of this module, we explore these questions and many others as we examine how crime, policing and punishment have evolved in Britain over the last three hundred years.
You will explore the development of key criminal justice institutions, such as the courts and the police, as well as the factors influencing change. Through hands-on work with primary sources, you gain rich and varied insights into our subject matter and build your skills in assessing evidence.
In addition to gaining knowledge about the history of the criminal justice system, you also develop the ability to critically reflect upon how crime and society interrelate, and to construct your own, evidence-based arguments as contributions to ongoing debates about the past, present and future of criminal justice.
Through exploring the modern prison system in England and Wales, you will learn about how prison came to be the mainstay of our penal system, what different rationales are put forward to explain its purpose, and who we typically send to prison. Various topical issues of imprisonment will be interrogated during the course with a view to understanding whether the current prison system is in a state of crisis. You will start by being introduced to the question of whether our prisons are legitimate and will consider the arguments for and against prison reform and abolition.
We will incorporate lived experience elements, drawing on account of those who have lived and worked within the prison estate. Classes throughout the course will be grounded in both theoretical concepts and statistical information, and will refer to current cases as examples to enliven discussions and further the development of new views and ideas surrounding prisons.
This is your introduction to Criminal Psychology. You will explore the roots of criminal psychology and pioneering debates that have shaped the field, mapping both historical and contemporary debates.
We will outline a variety of debates and theoretical perspectives in criminal psychology and expound the utility of criminal psychology within criminal justice contexts. In doing this, you will begin to explore the history of criminal psychology, how the field has been shaped, biological and developmental theories of psychology and offending, the emergence, persistence and desistence of offending from various standpoints.
By the end of the module you will have developed an understanding of criminal psychology and how developments in the field are shaping criminal justice practice in policing, sentencing in the courts, and offender rehabilitation in prisons and probation contexts.
What does it mean to say that someone is ‘negligent’? How do you know when liability for negligence arises? You'll explore in depth tort law’s most important tort: the tort of negligence, looking at its specific elements and legal concepts related to it. You'll develop proficiency in the use of case law-based arguments as a way of determining liability in tort. Through an in-depth focus on modern decided cases you will:
You'll also consider the role played by statutes in tortious liability, including in defences to tort claims, and the liability of occupiers of land, manufacturers and/or publishers. You'll learn how tort protects interests in land and the person.
Explore the relationship between tort law and its social context to explain its shape and contemporary debates about its scope. By observing where the lines of liability are currently drawn, you'll consider what this reveals about private rights and obligations, the balance between responsibility for harm and freedom of action, and access to justice.
How does property law respond to new forms and conceptions of property in contemporary society? What do those responses say about property as a legal institution, and the role of power? Building on Property Law you'll look at property in its many different forms. You will be encouraged to question the common-sense understanding of property as privately owned 'things’, which the law merely recognises and protects. You will explore the active, constructive and political role of law in constituting the relationships which make up property in particular historical, philosophical and/or cultural contexts. Each week, you will engage with case studies and theoretical readings from a wide range of topics, such as: claims of ownership of human bodies and bodily materials; the contribution of property law to racialisation and the formation of social identities; the role of property interests in both exacerbating and responding to climate change; and emerging categories of property, including data derived from social media use. By examining how property law responds to developments and innovations in contemporary society, you'll will provide you with the critical thinking skills required for reflective and creative professional practice.
Your lecturers go on strike. Junior doctors stage a walkout. Do they have a legal right to do so? Why? You'll focus on the legal framework on collective bargaining and the right to strike. The Equality Act 2010 provides a legal framework that seeks to protect people from discrimination, including in the workplace. You'll consider how anti-discrimination legislation shapes the employment relationship. You will develop a detailed knowledge of key aspects of collective labour law and anti-discrimination legislation. Develop your capacity to integrate legal analysis and practical legal skills with a contextual and interdisciplinary understanding of human rights and equality regulation at work. You will examine freedom of association, a central feature of human rights and selected aspects of collective labour law such as the role and status of trade unions, the legal regulation of collective bargaining and the regulation of industrial conflict. You will study anti-discrimination legislation, particularly the Equality Act 2010, related to areas such as sex, ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief and age, as well as provisions for reconciling work and family life, such as pregnancy protection and parental leave.
What is the purpose of banking law? Why are banks subject to distinct forms of regulatory supervision? You will learn about UK banking law and about the broader social, economic, and political issues and controversies that have surrounded banking in the years since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. You will appraise and analyse the role of banks in money creation. You will explore the relationship between banks and the UK’s banking regulators, including the Bank of England. You will learn about the bank-customer relationship, the role of banks in the payments system and the anti-money laundering regime with which banks must comply. You will explore the lending of money by banks to their customers and the security taken for the loans granted. Throughout this module, you will be encouraged to consider and evaluate the tensions and controversies that banks and banking regulators face as they pursue their sometimes complementary, sometimes conflicting objectives.
How and why do states use law to regulate international trade and investment? How can international economic disputes be resolved? What are the implications for corporations and individuals? How have the answers to these questions changed over time?
You'll use a critical sociolegal approach to systematically explore the legal texts, social contexts and moral subtexts that make up international economic law. Focus is on trade and investment as two core economic activities, on multinational corporations and states as key actors and on regulatory systems such as contracts and treaties, including treaty-based international organisations such as the World Trade Organisation. You will explore the interplay between economic principles and international law principles, in times of calm and in times of crisis. You will engage with podcasts and films to bring to life multiple perspectives from, for example, the public, private, and third sectors; the relatively poor and relatively rich; and from local, national, regional and global levels.
When you bake a cake, you need a list of ingredients and a recipe. Imagine the adversarial trial is a cake. If the substantive law provides the ingredients, then it is the law of evidence that provides the recipe and teaches you how to bake.
You will be asked to think like a lawyer. You will develop skills in inferential reasoning and apply them to various scenarios. You will be able to assess whether certain pieces of evidence have relevance, sufficient weight and probative value that outweighs prejudicial effect. You will be able to apply various exclusionary rules and discretions, whilst also critically examining these rules in their social and political contexts.
Armed with the knowledge and skills obtained in this module, you will be in a great position not only to undertake the first steps towards qualifying as a barrister or solicitor, but also have the skills to be able logically and coherently analyse, reason and argue in all sorts of other contexts. The law of evidence is a compulsory subject for both the SQE and BSB (Bar Standards Board) Central examinations.
What other topic in the study of law can boast of being as inevitable as death? Tax law pervades the world of business and also has a major impact on decisions taken in the private sphere. It is highly political, having vastly greater redistributive effects than almost any other direct exercise of the power of the state. But it is not about numbers or computations. It is about questions of legal doctrine, the structure and meaning of people's dealings with each other and (putting the two together, as with other areas of law) the application of the law to the facts.
You will become familiar with several major topics in tax law, such as the taxation of business profits, the taxation of employment income, the taxation of capital gains and VAT. You will explore important questions of principle and you will consider the policy debates that arise from them. Underpinning it all it, you will acquire some of the insights that the study of tax law provides into the seemingly unending three-way struggle between human populations, privately held wealth and the coercive power of the state.
How does law institute and regulate material spaces? How do spatial configurations intersect with law? In this interdisciplinary module you will examine how the understanding of law, regulation and policy can be improved by studying the spaces and spatial orders that the law institutes and regulates, as well as the ways in which spatial configurations generate materialisations of and resistances to law. You'll draw from urban planning, urban law, architecture, urban governance, socio-legal and critical legal studies, legal geography, and spatial approaches across disciplines.
Case studies may include: prisons, ghettos, slums, social housing, homelessness, refugee camps, immigration detention facilities, modern, future, utopian cities, street art, activism and occupations, digital and virtual spaces, ecocide and the protection of oceans, coastlines, and forests, the availability and uses of public spaces and non-western cultures of spatial relations. Drawing on contemporary events and examples and methods from the social sciences and the humanities you will be introduced to dominant paradigms of understanding the intersection of law, space and power, and consider ways in which they can be challenged.
We live in an era when legal decision-making seems both increasingly influenced and increasingly challenged, by science and technology. How can we make sense of the relationships between law and the fast-changing world of science and technology? How do we pay attention to the risks, inequalities, and injustices that may be produced when states uncritically use new technologies, or fail to acknowledge the inherent limitations, or blind spots, of global scientific knowledge? You'll be introduced to several interrelated fields including law, socio-legal studies, Science and Technology Studies (STS), anthropology and sociology, to think about these questions. You will critically engage with contemporary examples such as public health regulations; climate change; law and scientific expertise; the regulation of reproductive technologies; science in the courtroom; and the use of technologies in legal decision-making. You will use the literature to not only frame debates but to find ways of challenging the dominant paradigms through which the relationship between law and scientific knowledge tends to be understood. Cross-cutting themes for the module will include: legal decision-making and scientific uncertainty; the role of expertise in legal decision-making; the interface between law, power and technoscience; notions of objectivity and truth both in law and science; global science, postcolonialism and global inequalities.
The day you have been dreading for two years has arrived. You always knew that you would have to go to court and tell them what happened. You’re scared, you’re young, you have a disability and you can’t communicate well. You are vulnerable. How will the court hear your evidence? Will the cross-examination be ‘like a wounded animal being tortured in court’? Who are you? Are you the victim or are you the defendant?
You will examine what it means to be a vulnerable person in the criminal trial. You will critically evaluate the laws and processes that exist to help vulnerable witnesses give the best evidence they can. You will appraise the role of different stakeholders, whether that be the defence advocate cross-examining, the judge ruling in a ‘ground rules’ hearing or an intermediary advising the court on what measures a witness or defendant needs.
You will consider the debates surrounding rape myths and sexual offence trial reforms. You will gain an understanding of how young offenders are treated in the criminal justice system, and whether their vulnerabilities are taken into account. You will examine these debates from a range of different perspectives.
What is privacy? Why does it matter and how can we protect it? How can data be protected in a digital era where everything seems to be shared? You will focus on answering these questions and more through looking at the way the law defines and constructs privacy, cybersecurity threats, and digital surveillance in the UK, EU and elsewhere and how the law regulates data protection, freedom of information, and consent for digital and personal information collection. This will allow you to explore rapidly changing privacy and data protection issues including the ‘right to be forgotten’, the Internet of Things (IoT), AI, cybersecurity law post-Snowden and how we approach developments in digital surveillance such as facial recognition technology (FRT) and the use of AI.
You will be asked to critically examine whether privacy protection laws, consent, and confidentiality measures are fit for purpose. You will engage in critical analysis of how personal, health, and economic transactional data are managed, who has access to this information, and for what purposes. This is placed within the broader context of the digital and cyber landscape, considering hacking and transnational cybercrimes. You will be required to assess emerging legal, regulatory, data protection and personal privacy issues raised by widespread access to personal information, responding to changes in data protection law and changes in the cyber landscape.
Privacy, Data Protection and Cyber Law raised detailed questions which you have the opportunity to explore. These may include questions such as: Is privacy furthered or reduced by developments in AI and the metaverse? Who benefits from data generated in smart homes and how and where is it regulated?
You will build on the understanding developed in Privacy, Data Protection and Cybersecurity Law, which introduces you to the key concepts and issues in the regulatory framework governing privacy, data protection and developments in cyber-crime and cyber security. You will engage in far more in-depth, critical enquiry and insight in the subject area using current issues and case studies as a platform for developing more specialist knowledge and ideas.
You will be adopting a research and scholarship led approach allowing you to make a more tightly focused analysis of emerging current issues in the area of data and cyber law than is possible in the earlier Privacy, Data Protection and Cybersecurity Law module.
The specific topics considered will be revised annually to engage with current issues in data protection and cyber law, for example transnational cyber crime, developments in AI and data in a world of constantly emerging technology.
What is the interrelationship between political theory and law in our times? Drawing upon a broad range of political theory, you will explore key concepts of political relevance to law, such as: sovereignty, power, community, the subject and resistance. You will build a solid understanding of political theory in relation to these key concepts and then use this understanding to examine contemporary political and juridical questions, such as those of: democracy and citizenship, multiculturalism, bio-politics, secularism, terrorism, post-colonialism and contemporary formations of Empire. In so doing, you will gain the intellectual tools necessary to apply insights from political theory and philosophy to the study of law and its relevant problems.
Why is music as an art form controlled and occasionally criminalised by the state? What are the potential implications for artistic expression and cultural freedom within society? You will approach the relationship between music and law from two main points of view: one theoretical, and the other critical and sociological. You will first explore how music and the soundscape have been theorised as a specific legal and political problem in the field of Law and the Humanities. Drawing on these theoretical principles, you will go on to examine state intervention in censoring or controlling music and the attempt at criminalising specific genres of music. A specific focus will be the use of rap music in criminal trials in the UK and US, and the use of lawsuits as a weapon to criminalise heavy metal bands.
Millions of people have been forced to cross the borders of their home state and seek asylum. How do legal systems (national and international) provide or deny protection to asylum seekers and refugees and why? In this module you will engage critically with the matter of asylum and refugeehood in both a national and international context. You will be introduced to the sources of asylum and refugee law and a critical consideration of the relevant case law in the UK and internationally. You will employ interdisciplinary material to aid understanding and reflection on the historical and socio-cultural evolution of the governance and regulation of asylum and refugee subjects. In addition, you will devote critical attention to key contemporary problems in asylum and refugee law, and refugee studies more broadly, including current national and international developments and scholarly and practitioner reflections in the field.
You'll have already considered questions about the applicability of bioethical theories and concepts to legal decision-making and health care policy in your studies. Now you have the opportunity to explore and deepen your knowledge and critical legal abilities by exploring further questions such as how advances in genetic medicine challenge assisted reproductive regulation and the delivery of personalised medicine and whether social and ethical values about assisted dying, abortion, and public versus private medicine should be drivers for legal and regulatory change. You will build on the understanding developed in Law and Medical Ethics. You will engage in more in-depth and critical enquiry and will gain greater insight into bioethical, clinical, and legal tensions by examining current issues, regulatory developments, and case studies as a platform for developing specialist knowledge, ideas, and awareness. You will be adopting a research and scholarship led approach allowing you to make a more sustained, critical, and directed analysis of emerging issues in bioethics, health policy and medical law, such as pandemics, developments in genetics, xenotransplantation and the effects of ableism and structural racism.
When is a wedding a legal marriage? How does the law define domestic abuse? When can the state remove children from their parents’ care? Why is someone considered a legal parent in the first place?
You will consider these questions and more by learning about how law interacts with important aspects of personal life in the legal construction of families and responses to family problems. English family law is an exciting and fast-paced area of law. Many issues have undergone significant reform in recent years (marriage, civil partnerships, domestic abuse, child protection, adoption, divorce, child arrangements) and/or are currently the subject of major debates or reform proposals (cohabitation, weddings law, surrogacy, financial separation, child arrangements – again!). You will not only learn about what the law is, but also examine its underpinning policies and the socio-political context in which it operates.
Recurring themes and concepts will run throughout, such as the role of state intervention versus private ordering; individual or family autonomy; equality, rights and responsibilities within families; the priority and meaning given to child welfare; and strong norms and expectations attaching to gender, biology and heterosexual relationships. The extent to which English family law is inclusive of minority or disadvantaged groups in society will also be examined.
There is a well-established correlation between illicit drug use and other forms of crime. In order to understand this connection, and how to reduce related harms, we need a thorough and critical understanding of: the scale and type of illicit drug use; the causal connections between drugs, crime and other social factors; and the policies and practices that are used in response.
You will explore these matters, while also examining the inequalities in drug use and related harms across social groups, by class, race and gender. By the end of the module, you will be enabled to gather and analyse data on illicit drug use and markets, their links to other forms of offending, and the policies and practices that can provide just and effective means for preventing and reducing harm and inequalities.
To gain understanding and offer solutions for offender rehabilitation, we need to critically examine the role, use, and rehabilitative work of correctional services for adults in the prison and probation estate as part of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Services (HMPPS).
You will review the recent history and contemporary concerns of prisons and probation, and the various models employed in attempting to help offenders to change. We draw upon relevant theory, research, and practice to consider how these services may, or may not, contribute to the rehabilitation and resettlement of serious offenders. You will also explore the idea of desistance and how this can be facilitated or undermined within prison and probation contexts.
By the end of the module, you will have gained a detailed and sophisticated understanding of the central importance of prisons and probation to the criminal justice system and of the potential for, but also pitfalls so often associated with, offender rehabilitation.
Cybercrime is an increasingly relevant and important issue of our time. You will explore the phenomenon of cybercrime within the context of contemporary criminological theory and practice. You will also examine the emergence of cybercrime, its impact on society, and the challenges it poses for law enforcement and criminal justice systems. Through a multidisciplinary approach, you critically analyse various forms of cybercrime, such as hacking, identity theft, online fraud, cyberbullying, and cyberterrorism.
We cover key theoretical perspectives relevant to understanding cybercrime, such as routine activity theory, strain theory, social learning theory, and subcultural theories. You will aim to understand the motivations, behaviours, and techniques of cyber offenders, as well as the socio-cultural, economic, and technological factors that contribute to the prevalence of cybercrime.
Additionally, you reflect on the implication of the legal and regulatory frameworks governing cybercrime, international cooperation in combating cyber threats, and strategies for cybercrime prevention and intervention. You will use case studies and real-world examples to illustrate theoretical concepts and practical implications.
Why has crime become such an important political issue in recent years? And how has the politicisation of law-and-order transformed the criminal justice landscape?
You will explore the way in which criminal justice and criminal justice policy-making has been subject to increasing political scrutiny in recent years. You’ll engage with topics such as terrorism, dangerous offenders, penology and capital punishment to highlight the interaction between popular opinion, research, policy formation and the criminalisation of particular groups within society.
Each week you’ll be introduced to some of the contemporary debates surrounding the creation of criminal justice policy, and the potential unintended consequences that those political decisions can bring about. Focusing on important ideological shifts in the practice of criminal justice, you will be equipped to critically engage with the debates surrounding the politicisation of law-and-order.
How do we explain the enduring fascination with young people who commit crime? And what happens to children and young people who break the law?
On this module you will explore the range of sociological and criminological ideas that have been put forward to explain young people’s deviant behaviour, and society’s responses to their crimes.
Each week you’ll be introduced to some of the contemporary debates surrounding young people’s involvement in crime and deviance. When does naughty behaviour become ‘anti-social’, or even criminal? And who should have the power to define that behaviour and govern it?
You will investigate various responses to youth crime, giving special attention to how young people are dealt with by the youth justice system. Through focusing on theories and ideas about the nature of youth, crime and youth justice, you are equipped to critically engage with the debates surrounding the causes of youth crime and the responses of the youth justice system.
Violence has always grabbed the headlines, now it is receiving increasing attention within the social sciences. You will explore why this is and will be introduced the major theoretical and research themes involved in the analysis of violence.
You will examine data on the prevalence, nature, and effects of violent crime, and will consider issues of violence, aggression, and masculinity. This will be done with reference to examples, such as racist crime, homophobic crime, and domestic violence.
You will approach violence from interpersonal and societal perspectives and will include consideration of collective violence and genocide. You will complete this module being able to examine solutions to violence and conflict resolution, the effects of intervention strategies and non-juridical responses to violence.
This module – taken by students based at Kent’s Canterbury campus and others based in prison – explores contemporary issues in criminal justice focusing mostly on the British context. The curriculum provides the opportunity for Kent students to connect with real world criminal justice issues, including imprisonment – and for prison-based students to place their own experiences of the criminal justice system in a wider academic context.
The curriculum will be divided into four parts as follows:
• Part one: Prison security training; separate introductory meetings; first joint meeting and introduction to reflective writing and facilitated learning.
• Part two: Substantive topics of criminological interest e.g. what causes crime; do prisons work; how should we regulate drugs; how should victims be treated within the criminal justice system.
• Part three: The development of a group project between small groups of Kent and prison-based students. This project will be related to one of the substantive topics from part two and will culminate in a group presentation.
• Part four: Closing ceremony and debriefing providing a final space to reflect on the overall learning experience.
Kent Law School emphasises research-led teaching, which means that the modules taught are at the leading edge of new legal and policy developments.
Through diverse and timely assessments tailored to each course level, we aim to support the development and demonstration of legal knowledge, critical approaches, and both general and legal skills. Our progressive assessment approach builds and connects knowledge, providing constructive and timely feedback to enhance student learning throughout the course.
For a student studying full time, each academic year of the programme will comprise 1200 learning hours which include both direct contact hours and private study hours. The precise breakdown of hours will be subject dependent and will vary according to modules.
Methods of assessment will vary according to subject specialism and individual modules.
Please refer to the individual module details under Course Structure.
For course aims and learning outcomes, including for Joint Honours courses and for Law with a Foundation Year, please see the course specification.
As a law and criminology student at Kent, you will benefit from being taught by academics and researchers who are leaders in the field, both for teaching and research. So not only will you be taught by people who are at the forefront of development and debate around issues relating to crime and law, you can be assured that they are also excellent teachers. Meaning they can keep you in touch with the leading debates around issues that matter most to you.
This means that when you graduate, you are well informed on the areas you want to effect change in and well placed to kickstart your career. You’ll be ready to enter a dynamic and diverse labour market. Our degree especially puts you at an advantage when pursing a legal career, with our graduates well placed to step into the courtroom and make a difference.
The skills and confidence you graduate from Kent with put you in the perfect position to realise your ambition. This could be in law, or any area you want to explore and change. The adaptability of the skills you develop, and the degree programme itself gives you the autonomy to make your degree and your career your own. Wherever you want to go, law and criminology at Kent is a great first step to get there.
All the academics and support staff want you to do well and give you the tools to do so.
*The Government announced on 4 November 2024 that tuition fees in England for Home students will increase to £9,535 from £9,250 for the academic year 2025/26. This increase requires Parliamentary approval, which is expected to be given in early/mid 2025.
Tuition fees may be increased in the second and subsequent years of your course. Detailed information on possible future increases in tuition fees is contained in the Tuition Fees Increase Policy.
The University will assess your fee status as part of the application process. If you are uncertain about your fee status you may wish to seek advice from UKCISA before applying.
For details of when and how to pay fees and charges, please see our Student Finance Guide.
Students will require regular access to a desktop computer/laptop with an internet connection to use the University of Kent’s online resources and systems. Please see information about the minimum computer requirements for study.
Students may be required to visit a local court as part of their studies. Costs (if any) would relate to travel to and from a local court.
Find out more about accommodation and living costs, plus general additional costs that you may pay when studying at Kent.
Kent offers generous financial support schemes to assist eligible undergraduate students during their studies. See our funding page for more details.
We have a range of subject-specific awards and scholarships for academic, sporting and musical achievement.
Next steps
Any applicant to Law (this includes all Law courses, including all joint courses) who is currently studying or has previously studied Law at university level, even if the qualification was only partly completed or is incomplete, must state this clearly in the qualifications section of the UCAS form, and provide transcripts detailing this study direct to the University where available.
If you are from the UK or Ireland, you must apply for this course through UCAS. If you are not from the UK or Ireland, you can choose to apply through UCAS or directly on our website.
We welcome applications from students all around the world with a wide range of international qualifications.
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