Psychology of Forensic and Criminal Behaviour

This module explores the complex relationship between mental health and the criminal justice system. You’ll critically examine how psychological theories, research, and applied practice shape fair, ethical, and effective responses to offending behaviour. You’ll learn about key legal frameworks, including the Mental Health Act and the Mental Capacity Act, and explore how these apply in real-world contexts such as court proceedings, parole decisions, and multi-agency working.

This module provides a critical foundation as you enter the field of forensic psychology, focusing on the academic, professional, and reflective skills essential for success in both postgraduate study and applied forensic contexts. You’ll be introduced to the expectations of academic integrity, the skills needed to critically engage with and evaluate research evidence, and how to structure your writing and communication in ways that are relevant to professional settings—such as psychological reporting and other forensic applications. Core skills, including sourcing and appraising empirical literature, applying ethical principles in both research and practice, and developing coherent academic arguments, will be developed through the lens of forensic psychological practice.

In this module, you will build a comprehensive foundation in both quantitative and qualitative research methods tailored to criminal and forensic psychology. You will develop advanced skills in research design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation, working with a variety of methodologies, including hypothesis testing, experimental design, survey research, interviews, and focus groups. Through weekly lectures and seminars, you will strengthen your critical analytical abilities, learning to use statistical software (e.g., SPSS) for quantitative analysis and applying qualitative approaches, like thematic analysis. Throughout the module, you will reflect on ethical considerations, reproducibility, and the evaluation of validity and reliability across both quantitative and qualitative methods. By engaging in hands-on exercises and applied projects, you will gain the practical experience needed to design, conduct, and analyse research, preparing you to critically apply a wide range of methods to criminal and forensic psychology topics and real-world contexts.

This module will provide with an advanced, integrated understanding of theories of criminal behaviour, forensic risk assessment, case formulation and psychological interventions within forensic settings. Lectures will provide you with the required teaching to understand general and specific offending behaviours, typologies within different offending populations and the aetiology of offending behaviours.  

Assessment for this module consists of two equally weighted components. The first is a risk assessment report, where you will apply a risk assessment tool to a chosen case study, based on your workshop practice. The second is a case formulation, completed on one of several case studies, of which you can choose.

This module will provide you with an advanced, integrated understanding of theories of criminal behaviour, forensic risk assessment, and psychological interventions within forensic settings. Lectures will provide you with the required teaching to understand general and specific offending behaviours, typologies within different offending populations and the aetiology of offending behaviours. 

Assessment for this module is divided equally between a reflective report and a recorded presentation. For the report, you will choose three areas of offending behaviour that have had the greatest impact on your learning. The presentation will be based on a topic related to understanding criminal behaviour, selected from a list provided.

This module provides you with the opportunity to complete a capstone project in a forensic or criminal psychology context. You’ll have the flexibility to choose a project type that aligns with your interests and career goals—whether that’s an empirical research paper, a meta-analysis, a systematic literature review, an impact case study, or a service evaluation. Whichever path you choose, the module places strong emphasis on scientific rigour, ethical integrity, and methodological competence in forensic psychological research.