With the distance learning course in criminology, you have the option of taking a free and non-binding trial period of four weeks. You register for the course as usual and test it for four weeks. If you are not convinced by the course during this time, you can withdraw your registration before the end of the four weeks. There are no costs for you and you only continue the course if you really want to. For further details, please contact the school directly.

The criminology course is a distance learning course that does not include any face-to-face events. You will be sent all the important documents and can work on them whenever and wherever you want. Distance learning tutor support can be added as an option, where a lecturer will assist you with all your concerns and also check your homework.

The distance learning course consists of 24 learning booklets. These each have an introduction to the topic, theory, self-study tasks, a summary, homework, self-study task solutions and an appendix. The individual learning booklets cover the following topics:

• The concept of crime
• History of Criminology I and II
• Directions, disciplines and working methods of criminology
• The police from a criminological perspective I to III
• Prevention
• New companies of punishment
• New paths in security policy
• Depictions of crime in the mass media
• The crime statistics
• Violent crime
• Property and asset crime
• Organized crime
• Juvenile delinquency
• Crime against foreigners
• Special forms of crime
• Political crime and terrorism
• Theories of the sociology of crime I: Approaches to origins (etiology)
• Criminal sociological theories II: Definitional approaches
• New approaches in criminology I and II
• Freedom and security as central categories of criminal policy

The online course in criminology can either be booked exclusively with digital course materials or additionally with printed course materials. With both options, you will receive the access data for the online platform, where you will be provided with all the course booklets as PDF files. You decide yourself when to work on the individual course booklets. You create a homework assignment for each of the 24 exercise books, which you can send in up to three years after the start of the course and which will be revised by an experienced lecturer from the department. If you have any questions, the lecturer will be available at any time if you choose the course option with distance learning support.

As you work through the learning booklets of the criminology course independently and at your own pace, you can complete the continuing education, further training over a period of time that is convenient for you. The course is normally expected to take six months, with a workload of around five hours per week. You will be supervised by a lecturer for up to three years and can submit your homework and complete the course up to this point.

If you have completed and sent in all your homework, you will receive a certificate confirming your participation in the criminology course. A certificate is also possible after you have completed a written thesis at home.