Bachelor of Criminology
2025 Deakin University Handbook
| Year | 2025 course information |
|---|---|
| Award granted | Bachelor of Criminology |
| Deakin course code | A329 |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts and Education |
| Campus | Offered at Burwood (Melbourne), Waurn Ponds (Geelong) |
| Online | Yes |
| Duration | 3 years full-time or part-time equivalent |
| Course Map - enrolment planning tool | This course map is for new students commencing from Trimester 1 2025. This course map is for new students commencing from Trimester 2 2025. Course maps for commencement in previous years are available on the Course Maps webpage or please contact a Student Adviser in Student Central. |
| CRICOS course code | 057849B Burwood (Melbourne), Waurn Ponds (Geelong) |
| Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) recognition | The award conferred upon completion is recognised in the Australian Qualifications Framework at Level 7 |
Course sub-headings
- Course overview
- Career opportunities
- Participation requirements
- Mandatory student checks
- Pathways
- Alternative exits
- Course Learning Outcomes
- Course rules
- Course structure
- Work experience
- Research and research-related study
- Fees and charges
Course overview
Discover why crime occurs, how it is perceived and how we can address it – and graduate with the skills to make a real difference in the criminal justice system.
Gain a deep understanding of the causes and impacts of a range of individual and organised criminal activities, from environmental crime to illicit digital surveillance. Learn how to use this knowledge to develop effective responses to harmful behaviours.
Deakin’s Bachelor of Criminology course is the most established in Australia. Our curriculum has been developed and designed in conjunction with professional bodies including Victoria Police, the Department of Justice and Community Safety Victoria and the Australian Institute of Professional Intelligence Officers, ensuring your study experience closely reflects the needs of the industry. If you like to learn by doing, work-integrated learning opportunities challenge you to apply your skills in real-world contexts and provide a preview to your future role.
Do you want to help ensure fairer outcomes and a better criminal justice system?
Our criminology experts will take you behind the thinking and research surrounding a breadth of criminology topics, while you build a portfolio that showcases your critical thinking and ability to meet complex questions of criminal justice with empathy and confidence.
Discover how justice and criminality is defined and by whom, how our courts and correctional processes operate, and the desirable outcomes of criminal justice processes. You will also get hands-on experience through our work-integrated learning opportunities, which allow you to bridge theory with practice and gain insight into how the study of criminology applies across different industries and sectors. You may even take your learning overseas and gain a global perspective on how other countries approach criminology.
Need more flexibility in your studies? You can choose to study part-time or full-time, on campus or 100% online. You can also take advantage of Deakin’s trimester system to fast-track your degree and complete your Bachelor of Criminology in just two years.
Complement your studies by pairing the Bachelor of Criminology with another degree. From arts to cyber security, you will graduate with a unique course combination valued by employers that will further expand your career opportunities.
Career opportunities
Graduates from this course can look forward to a diverse and challenging career, in roles such as:
- corrections officers
- crime prevention advisers
- crime researchers and analysts
- crime trends analysts
- criminologists
- federal and state police officers (requires further training)
- forensic psychologists (requires further study)
- intelligence analysts
- parole officers
- policy advisers.
For more information go to DeakinTALENT.
Participation requirements
Reasonable adjustments to participation and other course requirements will be made for students with a disability. More information available at Disability support services.
Mandatory student checks
Any unit which contains work integrated learning, a community placement or interaction with the community may require a police check, Working with Children Check or other check.
Pathways
Don’t quite meet the entry requirements for this course? The Associate Degree of Arts (A250) can be used as a guaranteed entry pathway into the Bachelor of Criminology and counts as credit towards your first year of study*. You’ll gain a solid foundation of relevant knowledge and be ready to transition seamlessly into your goal degree.
*Specific units of study must be completed within A250 for full credit to be granted. We recommend speaking with one of our student advisers before selecting your units.
Alternative exits
| Diploma of Arts (A215) |
Transition to University study
The faculty offers a unit that is specifically designed to ease the transition into university study:
| AIX160 | Introduction to University Study |
New students are encouraged to enrol in this unit in their first year.
Course Learning Outcomes
| Deakin Graduate Learning Outcomes | Course Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|
| Discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities | Review and analyse major social science theories and key criminological concepts, theories and technical knowledge relating to crime and criminal justice issues, including the causes and consequences of crime, ways of responding to crime, media representations of crime, core debates in policing, security and surveillance, as well as broader issues of policy and politics, inclusion and exclusion, governing and governance, security, social justice, citizenship and human rights. |
| Communication | Effectively communicate the findings and analyses of criminological concepts, theories and technical knowledge, in a selection of written, digital and oral formats, to a range of audiences. |
| Digital literacy | Employ a range of generic and specialist criminal justice-specific digital communication technologies to apply criminological knowledge and conduct social and criminological research and deliver reports and presentations to a diverse range of audiences within and outside the field. |
| Critical thinking | Analyse and critically evaluate theoretical approaches to crime problems and current policies and practices of governments and criminal justice practitioners and professions in the context of broad social change, new crimes, new responses and an increasing responsibility for preventing and controlling individual and complex crimes at local, state, national and international levels. |
| Problem solving | Employ initiative and creativity in conjunction with accepted evidence-based criminological methods to generate innovative and pragmatic approaches and solutions to complex problems in the areas of individual crime, complex and organised crime, the criminal justice process, questions of justice and injustice, local, national and international policing, surveillance, privacy and technology, and domestic and international crime and security issues. |
| Self-management | Demonstrate autonomy, responsibility, accountability and a continued commitment to learning and skill development, as a reflective practitioner, while working in the criminological field. |
| Teamwork | Work and learn collaboratively with others in the criminology field and from different disciplines and backgrounds while still maintaining responsibility for their own learning. |
| Global citizenship | Analyse and address criminological issues in the domestic and global context as a reflective scholar and practitioner, taking into consideration cultural and socio-economic diversity, social and environmental responsibility and the application of the highest ethical standards. |
Approved at Faculty Board 2014
Course rules
To complete the Bachelor of Criminology students must pass 24 credit points and meet the following course rules to be eligible to graduate:
- DAI001 Academic Integrity and Respect at Deakin (0-credit-point compulsory unit) in their first study period
- 6 credit points of core units
- 6 credit points of criminology course electives
- 12 credit points of open electives
- a maximum of 10 credit points at level 1
- a minimum of 14 credit points at level 2 or above
- a minimum of 6 credit points at level 3
- a maximum of 8 credit points taken outside the Faculty of Arts and Education
Students are required to meet the University's academic progress and conduct requirements. See the enrolment codes and terminology to help make sense of the University’s vocabulary.
Course structure
Core Units
| ACR101 | Introducing Crime and Criminology |
| ACR102 | Introducing Crime and Criminal Justice |
| ACR201 | Issues in Criminal Justice |
| ACR202 | Explaining Crime |
| ACR301 | International and Comparative Criminal Justice |
| ACR302 | Criminology Research |
Criminology units
Plus at least six credit points from the list below:
| ACR203 | Crime, Victims and Justice |
| ACR204 | Crime, Media and Justice |
| ACR206 | Criminology in Action |
| ACR211 | Crime Prevention and Security |
| ACR214 | Inequality, Power and Justice |
| ACR304 | Surveillance and Social Justice |
| ACR305 | Crime, Terrorism and Security |
| ACR306 | Careers in Criminal Justice |
| MAE266 | Black Market Economics: Exploring the Underworld of Illicit Trade |
Elective Units
Up to 12-credit points can be non-Criminology units.
No more than 8-credit points taken outside the Faculty of Arts and Education.
Students must ensure they select appropriate Level 2 and Level 3 units to fulfil course requirements.
Students are encouraged to consider completing a second major sequence and therefore may wish to select elective units in accordance with that major sequence. Please refer to A310 Bachelor of Arts for a list of Faculty of Arts and Education major sequences.
Work experience
Elective units may provide the opportunity for Work Integrated Learning experiences.
Further information
Student Central can help you with course planning, choosing the right units and explaining course rules and requirements.
- Contact Student Central
Research and research-related study
Independent research components are embedded across a number of units.
Fees and charges
Fees and charges vary depending on the type of fee place you hold, your course, your commencement year, the units you choose to study, and their study discipline or your study load.
Tuition fees increase at the beginning of each calendar year and all fees quoted are in Australian dollars ($AUD). Tuition fees do not include textbooks, computer equipment or software, other equipment or costs such as mandatory checks, travel and stationery.
For further information regarding tuition fees, other fees and charges, invoice due dates, withdrawal dates, payment methods visit our Current students website.