The Centre for Criminal Justice and Criminology at Swansea University was awarded the BSC’s National Award for Teaching Excellence in Criminology at its annual conference.  The  Award highlights and celebrates the best practice in teaching criminology across HEIs in the UK. The criteria for nominations for this award are informed by the UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning.

The Centre for Criminal Justice and Criminology (CCJC) began life in 1994 as a group of three ex-practitioner academic researchers teaching on a Diploma in Social Work programme. Today, undergraduate Criminology at Swansea is driven by seven full-time teaching staff, four associate lecturers and a dedicated team of eight postgraduate research students (PGRS) delivering the single honours programme and joint honours degrees in collaboration with the departments of Law, Social Policy and Psychology.

The CCJC offers a diverse, flexible and reflective programme of learning, teaching and assessment which prioritises alignment between critical course components and which is driven by dedicated student engagement processes. The synergy between students and staff has created a reflective, responsive, coherent and dynamic degree programme that enhances the student experience and equips undergraduates for life after University.

Head of the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Professor Haines said: “ I am delighted that our teaching team – staff and research students - have been given this award. They have worked tirelessly over recent years to develop a dynamic, aligned and reflective degree programme that is informed by pedagogy, current research and student engagement processes. They are highly dedicated and student-focused academics, deserving of official recognition for their dedication to producing a high quality programme that has been recognised by students, colleagues, external examiners and the University as significantly enhancing the student experience.”

Professor Alison Wride, Head of the College of Business, Economics and Law said: “I am extremely pleased that this award has been given to Criminology here at Swansea. It reflects a great deal of hard work on the part of all those who contribute and demonstrates the priority we put on ensuring an excellent student experience. These programmes provide students not only with superb academic qualifications, but also ensure that they leave us with huge opportunities in terms of their future careers. We are very lucky to have both our outstanding staff and fantastic students and are proud of them all.”

For more information on the Centre for Criminal Justice and Criminology, Swansea University go to : http://www.swan.ac.uk/law/criminology/researchcentre  

The British Society of Criminology aims to further the interests and knowledge of both academic and professional people who are engaged in any aspect of work or teaching, research or public education about crime, criminal behaviour and the criminal justice systems in the United Kingdom. The Society has been in existence for 50 years and has a wide-ranging membership based here and overseas. For more information visit: http://www.britsoccrim.org/index.htm