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Free learning resources from The Open University.

The meaning of crime
What is crime? This unit examines how we as a ‘society’ define crime.

Further study

Introducing the social sciences (DD101)
This course is an ideal introduction to the social sciences – psychology, social policy and criminology, geography and environment, politics and international studies, economics and sociology – through study of contemporary UK society.

Sociology and society (DD201)
This lively introduction to contemporary sociology contains four modules: understanding everyday life, social divisions and differences, social change and uses of sociology.

Welfare, crime and society (DD208)
This course examines the relationships between the worlds of social welfare and crime control. It focuses on policy interventions and responses in the UK and around the world to issues such as anti-social behaviour, poverty, discrimination, hate crimes, child labour, health and disease, families, slums, ghettos and gated communities.

Crime and justice (DD301)
Crime and how to respond to it are major concerns and this course offers critical questions to help you to better understand complex local and global trends in crime and crime control. It asks you to question why particular behaviours are criminalised at certain points in time and in certain places but not in others and why some harmful acts are not defined as crimes at all.

Making social worlds (DD308)
This accessible, vocationally relevant course demonstrates how sociological approaches can be applied to make sense of the processes human beings used in order to live in a social world. Making social worlds has relevance to a wide range of employment situations including public administration, health and social services, education, business, and other private and public sector organisations.

Understanding Cities (DD304)
A more advanced, more in-depth course which considers both the problems facing cities, and the nature of relationships found in urban settings.

Further reading

Criminal Justice: Local and Global, by D Drake, J Muncie and L Westmarland, (eds) (2010), Willan Publishing: Cullompton, Devon

The Media Construction of Financial White-Collar Crimes, by M Levi (2006) in British Journal of Criminology, Special Issue on Markets, Risk and Crime, 46: 1037-57

Crime: Local and Global, by J Muncie, D Talbot and R Walters, (eds) (2010), Willan Publishing: Cullompton, Devon

Privatizing Economic Crime Enforcement: Exploring the Role of Private Sector Investigative Agencies in Combating Money Laundering, by S Schneider (2006) in Policing and Society Vol 16 No. 3 : 285-312

'Crime, Harm and corporate power', by S Tombs and D Whyte, in Crime: Local and Global, by J Muncie, D Talbot and R Walters, (eds) (2010), Willan Publishing: Cullompton, Devon

A Haunted World: The unsettling demands of a globalised past
Steve Pile, from A Demanding World, edited by Clive Barnett, Jennifer Robinson and Gillian Rose, Open University

The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape, by Brian Ladd, University of Chicago Press

Weblinks

Berlin – the Open University Social Sciences guide to the city.

Thinking Allowed – listen to all the programmes from across the series online.

Content last updated: 10/12/2007