This is the transcript for the video Criminology
It’s just gone 17 minutes past, I think.
So I will make a start. I’d firstly,
like to just acknowledge country
UTS, the main campus on Broadway is on, uh,
Gadigal country, uh, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation.
And I would like to pay my respects to the Gadigal people,
to their elders past, present and emerging.
And I’d like you also to think about where you might be coming into this, uh,
remote session from I’m also on Gadigal land right now.
So you might like to just think about where you are, what particular, uh, uh,
indigenous land you’re on. My name’s Andrew Hurley.
I’m the deputy head of school here in the school of international studies and
education at, uh,
the faculty of arts and social sciences at UTS.
I have a background in international studies and in, uh,
in the law
before I commenced my career as an academic, uh,
I worked as a solicitor and I worked in an area of criminal law.
But if I say to you all, now,
what’s the first crime that comes into your mind when I say
crime or criminology, like, just do that for a moment.
What was the first thing that came into mind?
Maybe cyber security, cyber crime, maybe, uh,
some, uh, some things like, uh, assault or, uh,
perhaps, uh, you know, culpable driving in, in a motor accident,
but probably not the area of criminal law that I worked in,
which was occupational health and safety and also environmental law.
So, uh, prosecutions, uh, in a,
in a specific area of criminal law and procedure for, um,
unsafe workplaces, but also for things like spills,
uh, emissions of, of things in, um, in the environmental sector.
That’s enough about me though.
I’d like to also allow my colleagues who are here today,
presenting with me about the Bachelor of Criminology,
this brand new degree to introduce themselves. So over to you Alana.
Hi everyone. Uh, I’m Alana Piper. I’m also coming to you from Gadigal land,
just two blocks from the university campus, as a matter of fact. Uh,
so my background is I’m a, uh,
criminal justice historian at the faculty of arts and social sciences.
And I’m really interested in analyzing long-term trends in criminal
offending and how we as a society respond to it.
And I will hand over to Joanna.
Thank you Alana, Hi everyone.
My name is Joanna Wang and I’m a senior lecturer in the school of mathematical and
physical sciences in the faculty of science.
I have a background in statistics and my research is in the analysis of crime data and
evaluation of policy programs and reforms in the criminal justice system.
Thanks Alana. And thanks Joanna. So
you’re all here today and you’ve probably got a number of questions.
I’m going to pose a couple for you now,
which applied degree sets you up for a job in an expanding sector.
I’ve mentioned already cyber security,
but perhaps you’re thinking about transnational aspects of crime today as well,
which degree offers you great specializations and combinations to stand
out in the marketplace? Well, it’s probably no surprise if I say to you,
the criminology degrees, these brand new criminology degrees,
which we’re launching here at UTS and which we’re talking about today.
So what are they, they’re social sciences degrees, uh,
with a critical scholarly focus on crime law and society.
And we’ve put these together not only with industry support and a great deal of
consultation with the different industries, which you might end up working in,
but also with a collaboration from colleagues in the faculty of
science, the faculty of engineering and IT, and also law.
So let’s hear a little bit more about these degrees.
First of all, I wanted to talk to you a bit about the standard majors.
So as I said, the Bachelor of Criminology, uh, has, uh, a number of,
uh, different options.
And there are three standard majors and everybody who
does a criminology degree at UTS will do nine
core subjects. And we’ll talk a little bit more about them later,
and then you do some majors,
some specific subjects and some elective subjects.
If you’re in one of these three standard majors,
so forensics data and analytics and justice and legal studies,
then you have about a semester’s worth of elective subjects.
You can do on top of that. I’ll talk a little bit more about, uh,
what those different subjects are in a moment.
I’ll show you a slide about those,
but I’d like to just outline the different options for you in these different
majors. So forensics is really,
if you’re quite interested in crime scene investigation,
maybe watch a bit of it on TV and you’re fascinated by, uh, uh,
that aspect of things. Then forensics is probably the one for you.
Uh, it’s um, uh,
involves quite a number of specific areas, uh, coming from our, uh,
forensic science colleagues, um,
data analytics on the other hand is more about, well data it’s in the name.
So if you like data, if you like crunching data and numbers,
um, and the application, uh, of that in a, in a research or,
or, or a policy area, then this could be the major for you.
And you’ll hear a little bit more about this side of things, uh,
in a moment as well, uh, both from Allana, but also from, from Joanna,
the justice and legal studies. Uh, uh,
my major is probably the one closest to my heart with, uh,
with the background that I have, uh, as a solicitor and that, uh,
involves, um, really a focus on criminal justice,
criminal law, and procedure, and, uh,
other things around that. But, so if you’re interested in, in, um,
working in, uh, the criminal justice sector, uh,
then that could be the major for you.
So really these majors and the extended majors and the combined degrees,
which we’ll talk about in a moment,
they all allow you to take a particular interest, uh,
and the particular career path that you might be interested in and to follow it
by selecting a major,
I’ll just move on to the next slide,
which is the first about extended majors.
So what I didn’t say is that the, each of, uh,
our standard majors and, uh,
our extended majors take three years of full-time study.
So if you’re doing an extended major,
it doesn’t add any extra time to your time at university it’s three years.
Um, and, uh, with that, I’ll,
I’ll just hand over to Alana to talk a little bit about this one.
Yeah.
So data analytics might not strike some of you as a particularly exciting area
to major in,
but actually I think it’s really one of the most exciting majors to me,
at least, um,
because what you’re going to be learning in that major is really how to detect
patterns and trends in crime across time, um,
and identify links and causes of the offending and learn how to
evaluate how interventions by the criminal justice system, by the community,
um, affect and impact on rates of criminal offending and
victimization. Now to, uh, undertake this major,
we require that you have, uh, two units of English,
as well as maths extension one. Um,
because one of the key things that you’ll be analyzing is not just qualitative
data, but quantitative data numbers, statistics, um,
to understand crime rates, um,
in terms of the sorts of subjects that you’ll be doing in those major specific
subjects. It includes things like machine learning, applications, project,
um, applications programming,
and one of the other sort of great things about doing this majors is it means
that you’ll be doing actually two sort of industry placement projects.
You’ll do one within the core subjects that you studied,
but you’ll actually do an additional one also within the major specific
subjects, um, to do a sort of more extended project in,
at the analytics and research space. Now,
I think analytics and research they’re highly transferable skills across
any number of institutions that you might be interested in working in criminal
justice would be looking for these skills as well as outside the criminal
justice arena. If you went on to, um,
decided you wanted to do different things in society at large, but,
uh,
if you’re what you’re particularly interested in is perhaps working in criminal
justice policy. So with, uh,
community organizations or public policy organizations that are
interested in conducting research and, uh,
organizing initiatives to prevent crime or to rehabilitate offenders,
um, I would say that this is the major, most appropriate for you.
Thanks, Alanna. And I’d just say that if you do do the extended majors,
this one or the next one that I’m about to speak to you about in digital
securities, you don’t have as much elective choice.
We’re focusing down on a particular area,
and that means that you don’t have as much general elective choice. And, um,
of the electives that, that you might do,
if you do a standard major that could involve things like intercultural
communication, learning, and language, um, there are particular,
uh, internships opportunities to do things overseas. Um,
uh, and there are all sorts of things which if you do the standard major,
there is a little bit more room. There’s a semester’s worth of room for that.
If you choose one of these, uh,
specialized what we call extended majors, uh, there is less time,
um, in order to, to do that. Uh,
but of course you do have the extended major and that, that focus down,
which is, is if you already know exactly what you want to go,
exactly what you want to do in terms of, uh, career, uh, destination,
then one of those extended majors could really be for you. I said that too,
and here’s the next one? This is the, uh,
Bachelor of Criminology in Digital Security.
So you do an extra 72 credit points of, uh,
of, um, subjects within this digital forensics major.
What might that involve? Well, it’s really focusing on,
on aspects such as web systems, uh, cybersecurity,
um, digital and cyber crime,
all sorts of things relating to that statistical design and analysis.
There’s a little bit of that in there too, but it’s really,
it does add that digital forensics major and, um,
that will lead to, uh, as you might imagine,
all sorts of jobs within cyber security, uh, in particular,
again, there are, there is, uh, a, uh, an additional, um,
uh, requirement entry requirement.
If you do want to do this digital security, um, uh,
extended major.
You’ll need any two units of English and maths extension one,
and you’ll need Information
Processes in Technology and software design and development,
if you want to do it.
So there is a little bit of an extra entry requirement there.
We’ve had a question about, um, uh, this,
this is great from an anonymous attendee, um,
about the different sorts of combined degrees.
There was a question in particular about doing, uh,
a combined degree with a Bachelor of Forensic Science and, um,
that’s one of them. The other one is the Bachelor of International Studies,
and we do have some, uh, sub bachelor level combinations as well.
Um, the Bachelor of International Studies, I might start with that.
That’s a five year double degree,
and that involves learning a language other than English, and it involves going
overseas. Uh, uh, if you want to, you don’t have to,
but it typically students would go overseas to a language or to
a country where their language is spoken and,
um, pursuing, uh, a, uh,
a project in that setting overseas or doing, um, an exchange in that,
in that country.
And I’ll just give you an example of someone who did one of these, uh, um,
uh, a Bachelor of International Studies with,
and this person had a background in policing. She went to France, uh,
she went for six months. In the Bachelor of International Studies.
Part of the combined degree, you can go for up to a year, uh,
but there is the possibility of going of going for six months. Um,
this particular student, uh, was actually, she was a police officer.
She was taking a little bit of time away from her, um, uh,
from her work as a police officer in order to do the Bachelor of International
Studies. And she went to France for six months. She, uh,
uh, came back speaking, fantastic French, um,
and she pursued a major research project, which was, uh,
which while she was there. And it was in, um, uh,
involved interviewing, uh, uh, French police officers and, uh,
drilling down on a specific attitude and approach to policing in the French
context. And I met up with her quite recently, and, uh,
not only was that, that time, a life-changing experience going overseas for,
for a long period of time, she’s still in contact with the people whom she, uh,
whom she interviewed. And she came back,
she went back into the police force and came back with a real passion
for diversity, for diverse cultural situations,
um, and was, was a real, uh, advocate and has been real advocate for, uh,
you know, diversity in approaches to policing,
but also within the police force itself. So, I mean, that’s, uh,
a fantastic, uh, instance of the sort of, um,
places that the combined degree with a Bachelor in International Studies can
take you. And as I say, that’s a five-year degree, uh,
and involves learning a language. Um,
if you wanted to do something in that line, but not over five years,
then you can add a Diploma in Languages, which gives you, uh,
a language as well. You do it on top of what you’re doing.
So it’s like an over enrollment that’s three years. And, uh,
it, so it doesn’t add any extra time to your Bachelor of Criminology.
It’s just something that you add on top.
The Diploma in Innovation comes from our colleagues in the transdisciplinary
school and, uh, offers some of the sorts of subjects.
If you’ve heard about our Bachelor of
Creative Intelligence and Innovation, uh, it adds some subjects from that.
So it’s a design thinking type of diploma,
and that’s something that you also don’t need to add any extra time to your time
at university. It doesn’t overload you during semester,
but it does have, uh, it fits in between semesters, if you like.
So you’d be doing some work over winter and summer in that area. Uh,
how many languages are available? I can answer that very quickly, six languages,
and, uh, they are Chinese, uh, French, Italian, German, um,
Japanese and Spanish. And you can go to one of those countries, um,
and there are all sorts of other exchange destinations as well.
Um, finally the, uh, Bachelor of
Forensic Science, which, which we’ve had the question about there,
that is a four year degree. Um, so it’s, uh,
when it’s in combination with a Bachelor of Criminology,
it’s a four year combined degree,
and if you’re really into your CSI, um, and,
and that side of things, then this is perhaps the one for you. Uh,
it, uh,
involves doing the core criminology subjects and it involves
doing, um, the core forensic science subjects.
And you also select a major within your Bachelor of Forensic Science that
could be in, um, uh, it could be in biology,
it could be in chemistry. Um, it could be in forensic,
digital forensics, uh, could be in crime scene investigation as well.
So, uh, that’s something that you add. Uh,
and then you also add, um, uh, 24 credit points.
So one semester’s worth of elective subjects in criminology as well.
So those different ones that I mentioned before, things like, um, you know,
adding a language you can do, you can also add some, uh,
in those elective subjects,
you can do things relating to sustainability as well, uh,
and various different things.
So there are all sorts of things that within that double degree,
Bachelor of Forensics Bachelor of Criminology, you also get some of the, um,
uh, some of the, uh, the electives, um,
that come with the standard major in the criminology. Okay.
So moving along, here’s just an outline of, uh,
the core subjects. So you can see them there,
there are nine core subjects in criminology.
I’ve just put out here the different standard majors, justice,
and legal studies, data analytics, and forensics,
and you can see what’s in those packages there.
If you’re doing the standard major already talked about a little of them,
a little bit about that already, and about some of the different degrees,
I’m sorry,
some of the different careers that doing one of those standard majors will lead
to.
I’m just going to move and show you what a study plan might
look like if you’re doing the justice and legal studies major.
So that’s one of our standard majors is a three year full-time course.
And you can see there we’ve plugged in what a study plan might look like for
you, um, with a blend of, uh,
of the, um,
core subjects in criminology and the subjects in the,
in the major happening interwoven across the three years.
So you don’t just do criminology in the first year, uh, in the core,
you also,
we’re also doing those major subjects right throughout the whole time,
the different sorts of careers.
We’ve talked about this as we’ve gone talking over the different majors,
standard majors and extended majors in the combined degrees.
And of course you can see a list of some of the different ones there. Um,
I just had a couple of things,
and I know my colleagues on the panel be interested to say things in,
in their presentations as well. Um,
what we’ve been hearing about as we’ve been speaking with,
um, agencies and, and, uh, employers, uh,
as we were building this degree was about, you know, the, the growth in,
in particularly in that cyber security area.
And the fact that not only are there firms,
which specifically focus on prevention, uh, but they’re also, you know,
consultancy large consultancy firms too, that have divisions, uh,
relating to cybersecurity and to, um, to,
to forensics. And, um, in many cases,
what they’re actually doing is putting together,
investigating where there might’ve been a breach of the law.
They’re putting together a whole prosecution brief. So these are,
this is a private sector,
and then they’re handing it to the police on a silver platter, uh,
the prosecution brief, and the, um,
the police had been able to take over with the actual prosecution of,
of the alleged offense.
So we’re finding that there’s a lot of that actually happening in, in, uh,
the private sector. Um,
I mentioned the fact that I worked in these, uh, uh, sort of niche areas of,
of criminal law and criminal justice,
occupational health and safety and environmental protection.
And of course there are agencies that are relating to those as well in New South
Wales. It’s a Safe Work New South Wales, uh,
for occupational health and safety who prosecute.
And there’s also the environment protection authority who also both of those,
uh, agencies, uh, employ people to do policy work,
um, to put together prosecution briefs and so forth, uh,
and to investigate cases. So there are all sorts of opportunities there too.
Um, I will hand over to, um,
one of my colleagues now,
and that’s Joanna to talk about her work as a crime statistician,
cause that’ll give you a little bit of an idea of some of the opportunities if
you follow that sort of path too. So Joanna. Thank you, Andrew.
Um, so now talk about, so before joining UTS, I was working, um,
at BOSCAR. So BOSCAR stands for the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research,
and it’s a statistical and research agency that sits within the department of
communities and justice.
It has three main areas of activities in research and evaluation.
They undertake rigorous evaluations to determine the effectiveness of justice
programs and policies, and in modeling, formation and mapping,
they monitor patterns and trends in crime and perform sophisticated modeling and
analysis on crime and criminal justice issues.
And lastly data systems,
they develop and maintain high quality database on crime and criminal courts and
custody. Excellent.
BOSCAR has many very rich data sets. For example,
the New South Wales criminal court’s data, contains all the criminal court
proceedings from 1994.
And that includes 3.2 million local and children’s court finalizations and
95,000 at Supreme and district court trials and sentenced cases,
New South Wales police data. And that contains 17 million criminal incidents,
4 million persons of interest and 14 million victims. And lastly,
BOSCAR’s own re-offending database,
that database is particularly useful in research because the information
contained in your offending history is often a significant predictor for future
offending.
So BOSCAR is an agency that has the capacity to conduct research and can at
the same time help the policymakers in the criminal justice system to develop
and implement strategies that can reduce crime.
Next slide.
So now I’ll give you some examples of the kind of question that we ask in
crime and criminal justice system.
So one such question is what is the impact of the lockout laws.
In January 2014,
New South Wales government announced new restrictions on the licensed premises
in King’s Cross and Sydney CBD areas,
research question associated with this policy change include the lockout law,
reduce the incidents of non domestic and domestic violence assaults in Kings
Cross and CBD.
Is there any evidence of displacement to nearby areas?
Another question might be to develop a risk assessment tool
that can actually discriminate between repeat and non-repeat intimate partner
violence victims.
Another important question is to assess the effectiveness of alternative sentencing
options to full-time imprisonment. Now,
one such alternative is a so called intensive correction order where an
offender serves their entire sentence in the community,
and that includes supervision and monitoring by community corrections.
And we found that intensive correction order is indeed more effective in
reducing the risk of re-offending when compared to a short prison sentence of
less than two years.
And this results suggests that the local and the district courts across
New South Wales should expand the use of intensive correction orders.
And a last example is a recent study looking at the impact of the COVID
19 restrictions on the different categories of crime.
And this restriction is not the current restriction we are, we are in,
but the one that we had in much last year,
so different categories of crime,
and we look at include domestic and non domestic assault, sexual assault,
robbery, theft, and fraud.
Now you might be the case that deprived all opportunities to commit certain
types of crime. For example,
burglary, motor vehicle theft. Offenders might simply reduce their
criminal activity or switch to other kinds of income generating crime,
such as fraud. At the same time,
forcing families to spend long period of time together at home might result in
increase in domestic violence,
but closing licensed premises and therefore reducing alcohol consumption may
have the opposite effect on domestic violence.
And all of these hypothesis can be tested when you have access to relevant data
and the skill to conduct proper data or statistical analysis.
And this is the work I do as a crime statistician. Thank you.
Thanks very much Joanna and moving quickly on to Alana as well.
So we hear about her work as a crime historian.
Thank you. Uh, so as mentioned,
I’m a crime historian I’m sort of working at the nexus of history and
criminology, or as I like to explain it,
asking criminological questions of historical data.
So I think this sort of goes to show the importance of data and working
with data I’m just as Joanna works with data. I also work with data.
You’ve got an example there, um, on the screen of, um, uh,
prison record and, you know,
converting that into usable data is something that I’ve been sort of heavily
involved in in terms of creating sort of big historical data sets
that we can understand long-term trends in Australian crime
and criminal justice responses across time. So, you know,
one project that I was involved in the prosecution project, um,
did a similar thing with sort of court records.
And we were able to put together a data set of, you know,
half a million criminal prosecutions across the 19th and into the very late
20th centuries to analyze, you know,
what were the determining factors in the outcomes of prosecutions for serious
crimes in Australia across time? Um, uh,
perhaps you won’t be surprised to hear that actually one of the most
important, um,
if not the most important factor in those criminal
prosecutions was the presence or not of defense counsel,
um,
today and historically at a number of people go through the criminal justice
system, actually undefended, um, and you know,
that is a huge risk in terms of, um,
likelihood of stronger likelihood of conviction and a strong likelihood of a
more lengthier prison sentence,
another sort of new big data project that I’m involved in at the moment.
The criminal characters project is similarly taking tens of
thousands into hundreds of thousands now, um,
of prison records to look at offender’s life histories, uh,
across the longterm,
and to identify from that patterns in offenders, backgrounds,
and life events, that impact whether, uh,
how they end up their pathways into the criminal justice system and criminal
offending. Um,
but also the likelihood of whether they will keep offending or which we
refer to as recidivism or desist from crime over time.
And what sort of factors employment, education, um,
geographical mobility moving from place to place impact upon
those patterns of offending.
So one of the reasons if we go to the next slide, um,
that I think, you know, uh,
a criminology degree at UTS really makes sense is
that UTS has a very strong investment in, uh,
data and understanding data across the university as a whole.
And data is something that I think as you might see across both Joanna and my
discussion, um,
data is something that really sits at the core of what criminologists do and
understanding the causes of crime and trends and patterns in crime and
evaluating how effective the criminal justice system has been.
So one of the great facilities that we have at UTS is the UTS data
arena. Unfortunately, if we were on campus today,
we’d be able to show you in person. Um, but for now,
we’ve just got these visuals on screen,
but basically it’s a 360 degree data visualization facility.
You can go in and visualize this sort of big data, writ large,
um, and, um,
to understand it better and see it play out in different ways and explore it
quite creatively. Um,
you can also use it to create immersive scenes and
experiences.
And this facility isn’t just used by academic researchers like myself. Um,
but also industry professionals have made use of it,
including the New South Wales police. So on the right of this slide here,
we can actually see an image from one of those uses, um,
where LIDAR scanning of scenes has been
used by the police to be able to then go back in, um,
and create sort of simulations of spaces to understand things like
lines of sight between two different points. Um, you know,
would a certain event witnessed from a certain point, you know,
what would have been able to be seen from that point effectively?
So, you know, in terms of why UTS,
I think the data and the industry connections are two really
big selling points there. And with that, I’ll hand back to Andrew.
Excellent. That’s terrific. Alana. Thank you. Uh,
one of the questions that’s come through in the chat there,
or in the questions and answer is about industry links, uh,
and getting experienced for jobs.
So UTS is really about one of the features or UTS
model of learning is, um, connection with industry. And, uh,
here, you can see, um, a picture of Nick Caldas, who is an industry professor.
Who’s just been appointed to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and he,
uh, has an amazing background history, um,
with the New South Wales police force. He was a Deputy commissioner of police,
but more recently he’s worked a lot with the United Nations in different areas
and has very,
very fantastic connections out into our consulting and industry as well.
And that’s an example of the sort of person who’s associated with the
program, um, and will, there’ll be opportunities for guest lecturers coming in,
but in particular,
I wanted to draw everyone’s attention to the industry project,
which happens in the final year and that’s a,
a large subject and there’s a panel involved with that.
So because of the sensitivities of, of some of the industries that we are,
uh, dealing with, um, in criminology, uh,
going out and doing an internship, uh, compulsory internship, uh, is,
is not it’s, it’s not, um, it’s not something we can do.
However, we do have industry come in, form a panel,
place real world questions to our students,
and then the students are evaluated by that panel as well.
So that’s an indication of, of how, uh, industry is, is linked, uh,
with this program. Um, not only through people like Nick Kaldas,
but also in that way with that panel and the industry project. Uh,
if you do a, um, a major which has room as an elective for,
for an internship,
you can go and self source something perhaps in an internship, um,
in industry as well. So there are possibilities for that. Um,
I might just move on to the question panel here and try and deal with,
and answer some of the questions that you’ve, uh, you’ve raised.
So I’m just looking over those. Um,
I’ve talked about industry experience by that industry panel and also in the,
in the electives. Um, uh,
if you do the standard major and you want to, and are able to do it, uh,
an internship, the difference, there’s a question,
the difference between a forensic science degree and a criminology
forensic science major. So yes, there’s that all of the core, uh,
criminology subjects in the criminology degree. So that’s, uh,
all of those ones that were up on the screen before, um, you know,
introduction to criminology, uh, crime, data analysis,
um, uh, research methods in the social sciences. It’s,
it’s the social science factor and the understanding a little of the,
of the complexity, uh, of, um, crime society,
the law from a social sciences perspective,
which you don’t get in a forensic science degree itself,
uh, do you have to do elective subjects?
So there’s a different answer for that, depending on which major you select,
if you do a standard major over three years, there is room for electives,
and yes, you would need to,
if you pick an extended major then, um,
depending on which one you do, there’s either no room for electives,
or if there’s any room for electives it’s within the specific
area of that set of that extended major. So in those,
the simple is no there aren’t electives. Uh,
and if you do the combined degree with the Bachelor of Forensic Science,
yes, there are electives. And I talked about some of those electives, uh,
that are available, um, uh,
both in that combined degree, but also in the standard major.
Are there advantages to doing a double degree of criminology
combined with a forensic science, bachelor, majoring in biology?
Uh, well, I think I’ve explained a little bit about the,
the advantages of doing the double degree, uh,
with forensic science in that it does offer the social sciences
perspectives on criminology within the criminology
half of the double degree. Um, if you want to major in biology,
if you’ve got that background in biology,
then I would really recommend that you seriously consider doing the double
major. I sorry, the double degree with a Bachelor of Forensic Science,
because you can major in biology. That’s one of the areas you can write,
you don’t have to, but you can, uh,
I hope that answers your question, Bianca. So, um,
the social sciences and the sciences coming together in the combined degree,
that one is, uh, uh, a question now,
uh, which degree would be better for career in forensic science,
the Bachelor of Forensic Science or the double degree.
So criminology and forensic science. Well,
I would say if you’re interested in forensic science, um, just in, in, uh,
uh, from, uh, from that sort of more scientific point of view,
then the single degree,
but the double degree gives you the added social science, uh,
approach,
and would mark you out as being, um, uh,
distinguished from people who only have a forensic science single degree.
So it’s an extra year at university, but it does give you a distinction in,
in the job market. And that’s, uh, it gives you the, the,
the different approach as well,
but it also gives you that distinction in a job market.
So that’s something that you might like to consider the same goes for any of the
double degrees.
Doing the Bachelor of International Studies and
the, uh,
the Bachelor of Criminology would also distinguish you in the
market. And that’s something you might like to consider as well.
I gave that example of, of the student with a background, uh,
with the police force and how it was incredibly useful for her, uh,
for her work with the police doing the Bachelor of Arts in International
Studies. If I, I’m
just wondering if, when you, if,
whether you could do an exchange in the UK for criminology. So yes,
if you do a standard major in criminology,
um, you do an exchange that’s that’s possible, uh,
and there might be possibilities also in,
in the combined degree with forensic science to, uh,
the best way of getting overseas to a country where one of those six
languages is spoken is, is doing the double degree, but there are opportunities,
as I say, for, uh, doing an exchange within that, um,
the double degree with international studies or within, uh,
the standard major Bachelor of Criminology, uh,
what major would be most appropriate to working, uh,
for the AFP more specifically in the field? Um,
that’s really hard to say because the AFP sort of has, um, you know,
works over the very, uh, large jurisdiction as well. Um,
I might ask my panel though,
whether they might have any particular insights into that. Um, uh,
Joanna, is there anything you might say or Allana.
Like, I think, you know, as you sort of indicated,
it would probably depend on the sort of role that you would want to have with
the AFP. Like if you were interested in crime scene investigation, obviously,
um,
forensic science would appear appropriate if you’re interested in cybersecurity
and working on technical aspects, um, that, uh,
that major would be, uh, appropriate. Um, I would say again,
like the data analytics, um, major would, uh, you know,
fit you for certain roles within the AFP. Um, Joanna,
did you have.
Depending on the role? Um, yeah.
Uh, okay. So to be answered on Zoom, what’s your favorite part of the, of,
of the degree? Well, the degree is brand new,
so that’s pretty exciting for me that it’s, it’s, um, it’s being launched. And,
uh, uh, I guess for me,
the idea of that industry project is really exciting, uh,
where the panel comes in and, uh, and you get that real life,
real authentic, uh, questions, real-world questions coming,
which you have to have to work towards. Um,
so that to me is a really exciting part of the degree. Uh,
also the combinations, you know, with forensic science and, and, um,
with the international studies, which as I said at the start as my,
my own background. So, um,
I would like to get in intelligence and investigation. Uh,
what steps should I follow? Well,
I think probably, probably some of the,
some of the questions we’ve already answered, might give an answer to that.
Um, depends really what, what sort of areas you’re interested in, I think,
um, and whether you follow a particular, uh,
one of those standard majors or, or extended majors,
Allana is talking an answer to that.
So maybe she’s able to continue.
I was just going to say the data analytics, um,
if you’re sort of not sure what you want to do, but you want to be prepared for,
um, or to have it just sort of distinction from just the sort of standard
criminology,
the data analytics could be a good option there if you’re not sort of
immediately attracted to either the digital or the, um,
crime scene investigation. Um, because I think that the,
those data analytics skills are going to set you apart, um,
but also be highly relevant to the field work
and different areas as well.
Thanks, Alanna, uh, Nicola question,
if you didn’t study chemistry and only standard maths,
can you be offered placement in the course? So if you’ve got, um,
two units of English, then you can, uh, you can study the standard major,
uh, if you do the standard criminology, uh, can you major in, uh,
forensic science? Uh, yes, there is a forensics, um, uh,
forensic major standard major within the standard within the Bachelor of
Criminology. Yes. Uh, the next question, sorry,
I’m racing through those a bit as we’re about to run out of time, um,
prerequisites for criminology, uh,
and international studies combined degree. Uh,
so there’s no, um, the, the,
the prerequisites for the criminology degree, uh,
other ones that we’ve mentioned,
there are no prerequisites for the international studies part of the degree. Uh,
for example, you don’t need to, um, uh,
you don’t need to already have language skills. You can start as a beginner,
but you can also, if you speak French already, um, you’ve done it at school,
then we can also accommodate that. So that’s no problems. Um,
can you just apply for criminology and enter the combined degree, uh,
if desired, yes, that should be possible via an internal course transfer. So,
no worries. Um, when do you apply for the bridging courses please?
Um, uh, I’m not able to answer that question,
Nicola.
I suspect you might be asking about specific bridging courses and so forth.
It might be easier if you go to the UTS, uh,
um, uh,
open day site and seek some specific, uh,
advice, uh, from admissions, um, uh,
about your question that might be the easiest, um,
next question to become a crime scene investigator that double degree of
forensic science and criminology is best. Well,
you can do crime scene investigation, um, within,
uh, the, the standard degree. That’s no problems, uh,
as a subject, uh, if you pick one of the standard majors, um,
but I think if you’ve got a real passion for it, I’d,
I’d say go for the doubled grade that only adds an extra year,
and it gives you that distinction in the market,
and you’ve got the whole extra degree. Um,
what sort of careers would the criminology forensic science degree be most
useful for? Well, I think I’ve sort of answered that already.
Um, yeah, you know,
a crime scene investigator would, would, would be a classic one.
Uh, but you know, there are also forensics, um, uh,
you know, con consultancies and so forth that I did.
I spoke about when I talked about some of the, um, uh,
consulting firms that have also had forensics departments. Um,
if I dropped a side subject, but did it in year 11, is that okay? Um,
uh, Dahlia, I think it depends, uh, what,
whether you’re interested in doing one of the, uh, extended majors,
um, or indeed the double degree with forensic science,
it might be easiest for you to ask, uh, you know,
a specific question, um, of,
of the chat in the open day. But what I would say is that, uh,
you don’t need to have done, um, uh, uh,
science in order to do this, this, uh,
standard majors of the criminology degrees.
So the basic Bachelor of Criminology degree,
but if you’re asking about one of the combined degrees or extended majors,
I think, um, we can give you more specific answers. If you ask your, you know,
ask you a question against the background of your own study history,
we’ve gone over time.
So I’m aware that probably people need to go off to other things.
And I’d just like to say, thank you very much.
We’ve got through all of the questions,
which is amazing where a little bit after 11, I’d like to say,
thank you very much to everyone for participating to my panelists,
Allana Joanna, Serena behind the scenes, uh, to all of,
all of the students, prospective students, parents, and others.
Thank you very much for coming along.
Good luck with the rest of your studies this year.
And we very much hope to see next year or the year after,
perhaps depending on what you’re,
you’re doing this year here at UTS doing what about criminology degrees?
So thank you very much and goodbye.