During the first year students explore how and why certain issues become defined as problems and what might be done about them; they examine a range of issues which are the subject of current debates, with attention to their political and historical context and set them in context of the social divisions of class, gender, race, age, disability and sexuality; therefore allowing students to have the opportunity to look at the nature of modern welfare states, equal opportunities, discrimination, poverty and social exclusion; in the second and third years, the degree allows students to focus their studies on specific criminological topic; these include criminological thought, the criminal justice system, juvenile justice, victimisation, criminal careers, youth in trouble, the history of crime and punishment and contemporary problems such as drugs, acquisitive crime, organised crime and cybercrime.