The Department of Sociology and Criminology at Essex pioneers critical and sociological Criminology. We have both produced and attracted some of the most influential criminologists of the past 60 years, and continue to push intellectual and policy boundaries, while training and supporting the next generation of criminologists.
Our members have included early trailblazers such as Stanley Cohen, Kenneth Plummer and Mary McIntosh, through to recently retired colleagues such as Maggy Lee, Dick Hobbs, Jackie Turton and Nigel South. Our last Head of Department, Pam Cox is now serving as the first female MP for Colchester.
Our cutting-edge research spans areas including surveillance, migration, security, crime and the media, policing, organised crime and terrorism, prisons, green criminology, cybercrime, drugs, domestic violence, victims and victimology, sex work, crimes of the powerful and state crimes.
We host seminars and visitors, projects and networks. Since 2020 we are the editorial home of the British Journal of Criminology, one of the world’s top publications in the field.
Our members have worked with many grassroots, local and international organisations as well as governments and criminal justice agencies including: The UN and UN high commissioner for refugees, the International Organisation for Migration, the FBI, the College of Policing, National Police Chief’s Council, National Crime Agency, the Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Police Foundation, and the the Victim’s Commissioner, amongst others.
Our alumni have gone on to senior leadership roles in academia, NGOs, government, policing, probation, and more.
"A Centre is ‘more than the sum of its parts’ and at Essex the brilliant work of our individual researchers and writers comes together in the work of C4C and our team-written textbook (now in its 4th edition), our programme of open seminars and events, the involvement of our students and visiting scholars, and our interdisciplinary collaborations."
We attract research funding, work with partners from the local to the international, produce world class research outputs and engage with schools, colleges and businesses across the UK.
We attract the very best undergraduate and postgraduate research students to our Department and inform our teaching with the results of our cutting-edge criminological research. We also organise seminars and events throughout the year, covering a wide range of topics and open to all.
Our academic staff frequently feature within the wider press and media. Below are some examples of their latest appearances:
At Essex we take the sociological approach to studying crime and deviance to answer questions such as: why are laws made? why are these laws subsequently broken? what can be done about it? why is society fascinated with crime?
One aspect of criminology is to focus on the individual, but here at Essex we take a much broader perspective and research criminology from the social perspective. Our teaching is research based and engaged with the real world.
Explore our unique offer for UG and PG courses in criminology:
Top 30 for criminology in UK (The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2025).
Criminology: A Sociological Introduction - 4th edition By Eamonn Carrabine, Alexandra Cox, Pamela Cox, Isabel Crowhurst, Anna Di Ronco, Pete Fussey, Anna Sergi, Nigel South, Darren Thiel, Jackie Turton
"One of the strengths of this text and what distinguishes it from many market competitors is that the authors are scholars of international distinction who do groundbreaking research and don’t just report on it. They know their field and this allows them to avoid some of tropes and clichés encountered in other textbooks. And if you are looking for an introduction to criminology that avoids a lot of the parochialism of other texts, this is the one to read, with each new edition increasingly global in scale and ambition."
John Scott, Professor, School of Justice, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
"Criminology: A Sociological Introduction continues to be one of the most accessible, engaging and stimulating Criminology textbooks on the market. Now in its fourth edition, this book takes students through the most important socio-criminological issues of our time and is a resource that they will return to throughout their degree studies."
Yvonne Jewkes, Professor of Criminology, Department of Social & Policy Sciences, University of Bath, UK
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