Criminology Read, Watch Listen

To stay cognitively engaged read/watch/listen to anything that relates to criminology. Below are a number of suggestions. These will help develop research skills by using different modes of learning. It is important to engage in learning in a way that is interesting and stimulating.

Recommended Websites,
Podcasts and Videos

BBC Bitesize: Crime
BBC Bitesize: Causes and Theories of Crime
BBC Bitesize: Effectiveness of custodial and non-custodial responses to crime
BBC News Online: What makes a disability hate crime
Oxplore: Does Prison Work?

Podcasts:
Best True Crime
Criminology True Crime
Serial Killers
Sword and Scale

Videos:
Catching Britain’s Killers: The crimes that changed us
Forensics: The Real CSI
The Neuroscience of Restorative Justice
What Makes a Murderer

Recommended TV programmes
for background criminology knowledge

Crime and Justice Documentaries

Jeremy Bamber
Barry George
Guildford Four
Abu Hamza
Collin Stagg
The Birmingham Six

Textbooks/Reference

Does Prison Work?, Charles Murray
The Jigsaw Man, Paul Britton
The Psychopath Whisperer, Kent A Kiel
The Science of Evil, Simon Baron-Cohen

Exams and Revision

Past Papers

Films

(Some of these films may include mature themes so please check the ratings before watching.)

Gangs of New York: Amsterdam Vallon is a young Irish immigrant released from prison. He returns to the Five Points seeking revenge against his father’s killer, William Cutting, a powerful anti-immigrant gang leader. He knows that revenge can only be attained by infiltrating Cutting’s inner circle. Amsterdam’s journey becomes a fight for personal survival and to find a place for the Irish people in 1860’s New York.

Public Enemies: Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger’s charm and audacity endear him to much of America’s downtrodden public, but he’s also a thorn in the side of J. Edgar Hoover and the fledgling FBI. Desperate to capture the elusive outlaw, Hoover makes Dillinger his first Public Enemy Number One and assigns his top agent, Melvin Purvis, the task of bringing him in dead or alive.

The Shawshank Redemption: Andy Dufresne is sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison for the murders of his wife and her lover and is sentenced to a tough prison. However, only Andy knows he didn’t commit the crimes. While there, he forms a friendship with Red, experiences brutality of prison life, adapts, helps the warden, etc., all in 19 years.

We Need to talk about Kevin: Eva Khatchadourian is a travel writer/publisher who gives up her beloved freedom and bohemian lifestyle to have a child with her husband, Franklin. Pregnancy does not seem to agree with Eva, but what’s worse, when she does give birth to a baby boy named Kevin, she can’t seem to bond with him. When Kevin grows from a fussy, demanding toddler into a sociopathic teen, Eva is forced to deal with the aftermath of her son’s horrific act.

Zodiac: In the late 1960s and 1970s, fear grips the city of San Francisco as a serial killer called Zodiac stalks its residents. Two investigators and two reporters become obsessed with learning the killer’s identity and bringing him to justice. Meanwhile, Zodiac claims victim after victim and taunts the authorities with cryptic messages, cyphers and menacing phone calls.