UMH - Master's in Criminological and Victimological Intervention

This is the first graduate-level program in criminology that comprehensively trains professionals in the fields of criminology and criminal justice, intervention and treatment with victims and offenders, and crime prevention. It offers highly qualified faculty, in addition to professional psychologists, criminologists, and jurists with extensive experience.

Crime, its consequences, and everything surrounding it have been, are, and always will be issues of tremendous personal, social, economic, and political significance. One of its characteristics is that the problems associated with this phenomenon are always changing (and ever more rapidly), as well as the strategies for confronting it. It is therefore evident that socially and academically, the need for advanced training in this area is fully justified. All this produces, as a result, an increasing demand for training and research in this scientific area.

The Master's in Criminological and Victimological Intervention, given in Spanish, provides students with the skills needed to assess and intervene on individual and social levels, promoting and improving prevention aspects related to crime, delinquency, and victimization.

Career opportunities

Regulated profession: No

The Master's in Criminological and Victimological Intervention program affords good employment opportunities at care centers for victims, juvenile reception centers, shelters, mediation institutions, security and police forces, judicial institutions, juvenile courts, penitentiaries, city halls, and associations of victims.

This master's program is adapted to RD 1393/2007, and as such, facilitates access to doctoral-level education.

Master's coordinator

ESTEVEZ CASELLAS, CORDELIA
c.estevez(arroba)umh.es
+34 96 591 9472

Curriculum

ECTS credits: 60

Core	Required	Electives	External internships	Final Master's Project
0	36	9	9	6

Design

This program may be taken in either the blended or the distance format. It is comprised of 60 ECTS credits and it is taught over one academic year.
The curriculum is divided into the Basic Module (18 cr), the Module of Intervention Areas (18 cr), the Applied Module that contains four elective courses of which the student must take two (4.5 cr each), Internships (9 cr), and the Final Master's Project (6 cr).
Its electives provide specific program subject matter and practice in applying criminological and victimological techniques and instruments for intervention with both offenders and victims. Two itineraries are available, and each affords deeper specialization in either criminological or victimological intervention, depending upon the electives chosen by the student.

Elective itineraries

1. APPLIED INTERVENTION WITH CRIMINALS
This deals with the treatment of offenders, application programs, their results, effectiveness, and possibilities. It contains two courses: Prison Treatment (4.5 cr) and Treatment of Antisocial Minors (4.5 cr).

2. APPLIED INTERVENTION WITH VICTIMS
This presents procedures and techniques of care for crime victims, with special attention paid to the most vulnerable and criminal and parole conflict mediation, without forgetting about prevention and treatment techniques. This itinerary also contains two courses: Treatment of Victims of Violent, Gender and Sex Crimes (4.5 cr) and Treatment of Child Victims (4.5 cr).
This master is divided into four modules:

The Basic Module, taught during Fall semester, consists of four required courses (4.5 cr each) that provide advanced training on the study and analysis of the victim and the assessment and prevention of the criminal act.

The Module of Intervention Areas also consists of four required courses (4.5 cr each). These focus on different areas of intervention with minors, on violent, domestic, and property crime.

The Applied Module consists of two elective courses (4.5 cr each), and here each student chooses a specific intervention itinerary with either offenders or with victims.

Finally, the program is completed with the Practical Module. This includes the internships (9 cr), wherein the academic training received is applied in practical activities at institutions, organisms, and specialized entities in the criminological field. Also included herein is the Final Master's Project (6 cr), in which the student must conduct research, both empirical and a literature review, related to one of the topics addressed during the program.

Courses

Subject matter	Course	ECTS credits	Type	Year/Semester
				1
				F	S
APPLIED INTERVENTION WITH CRIMINALS
	PRISON TREATMENT
		PRISON TREATMENT	4.5	Elective		■
	TREATMENT OF ANTISOCIAL MINORS
		TREATMENT OF ANTISOCIAL MINORS	4.5	Elective		■
APPLIED INTERVENTION WITH VICTIMS
	TREATMENT OF CHILD VICTIMS
		TREATMENT OF CHILD VICTIMS	4.5	Elective		■
	TREATMENT OF VICTIMS OF VIOLENT, GENDER AND SEX CRIMES
		TREATMENT OF VICTIMS OF VIOLENT, GENDER AND SEX CRIMES	4.5	Elective		■
COMMON MODULE
	CRIME RISK ASSESSMENT
		CRIME RISK ASSESSMENT	4.5	Required	■
	CRIMINOLOGICAL AND VICTIMOLOGICAL PREVENTION
		CRIMINOLOGICAL AND VICTIMOLOGICAL PREVENTION	4.5	Required	■
	CRIMINOLOGICAL AND VICTIMOLOGICAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
		CRIMINOLOGICAL AND VICTIMOLOGICAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY	4.5	Required	■
	DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INTERVENTION
		DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INTERVENTION	4.5	Required	■
	FORENSIC CRIMINOLOGY
		FORENSIC CRIMINOLOGY	4.5	Required		■
	LEGAL INTERVENTION WITH MINORS
		LEGAL INTERVENTION WITH MINORS	4.5	Required	■
	VICTIMS AND CRIME
		VICTIMS AND CRIME	4.5	Required	■
	VIOLENT AND PROPERTY CRIME INTERVENTION
		VIOLENT AND PROPERTY CRIME INTERVENTION	4.5	Required	■
INTERNSHIPS AND FINAL MASTER'S PROJECT
	FINAL MASTER'S PROJECT
		FINAL MASTER'S PROJECT	6	Final Master's Proj.		■
	INTERNSHIPS
		INTERNSHIPS	9	Internships		■

Competencies

General competencies

Capacity for analysis and synthesis.
Mastery of the profession's basic knowledge.
Information management skills.
Problem solving.
Oral and written communication skills.
Ability to be critical and self-critical.
Ability to work on multidisciplinary teams.
Interpersonal skills.
Ability to communicate with experts in other areas.
Ethical commitment.
Ability to apply knowledge in practice.
Research skills.
Ability to learn.
Ability to adapt to new situations and generate new ideas.
Ability to work autonomously.

Specific competencies

Ability to apply criminology theories and concepts in the explanation and prediction of crime and victimization.
Ability to identify the risk of crime and the prevention needs in different intervention areas.
Ability to identify criminological problems, formulate questions about them, and plan their scientific study.
Ability to select and apply research results and analyses from advanced study of criminological and victimological problems to situations and specific intervention environments.
Ability to apply mediation and conflict resolution techniques in the different fields of criminological and victimological intervention that may arise in professional practice.
Ability to design and implement victimological prevention programs.
Ability to identify victimological risk factors.
Ability to implement protective measures for crime victims.
Ability to identify relevant criminological and victimological factors in the field of domestic crime.
Ability to carry out an intervention in the field of domestic crime.
Ability to identify relevant criminological and victimological factors in the field of violent crime.
Ability to carry out interventions in different areas violent crime operates in.
Ability to identify relevant criminological and victimological factors in the field of economic crime.
Ability to carry out specialized clinical interventions in different areas where economic crime operates.
Ability for criminological and victimological intervention with juvenile offenders and victims.
Ability to delve into advanced practical aspects about processing and interpreting specialized criminological reports in the clinical application of specific situations and subjects.
Ability to transfer models and theories about deviant behavior to clinical practice of professional intervention.
Ability to analyze the legal aspects about crime in depth and be able to apply that ability in an advanced manner to the field of forensics in specific intervention cases.
Ability to identify factors about risk and victimological protection.
Ability to design and implement treatments for specific offenders.
Ability to evaluate, in terms of effectiveness, efficacy, and efficiency, programs and treatments aimed at the offender.
Ability to evaluate, in terms of effectiveness, efficacy, and efficiency, victimological prevention programs.

Final Master's Project

UMH General Regulations

The Final Master's Project must be completed under the supervision of an academic advisor who is a faculty member with teaching responsibilities in the program. This advisor is responsible for explaining the project's characteristics to his/her student, and assisting and guiding the student throughout its development, ensuring compliance with the objectives, and issuing a report about the supervised work prior to its submission (Annex I). The FMP may be co-advised by external professionals who are experts in its topic provided they are expressly authorized by the Master's Coordinator. The Master's Coordinator, sufficiently beforehand, shall obtain a sufficient number of proposed topics from these professionals to cover the students' demand and shall publish a list of them on its website. Students may also propose topics for their projects to the Master's Coordinator. Said proposal shall state the project's topic, a brief description of it, and the resources required for its realization. This proposal must be signed by both the student and one faculty member, and if it is accepted, that faculty member shall act as advisor (Annex II). The assignment of a topic and an advisor shall be valid until the defense thereof.

The Final Master's Project Evaluation Committee shall consist of three members along with three alternate members, chosen among faculty members with teaching tasks in the master's program. If the advisor of the student presenting the FMP is a member of the Evaluation Committee, he/she must be substituted by one of the alternates when the supervised work is presented and defended. Students must submit a request for evaluation and defense of the FMP in accordance with the deadlines and according to the model (Annex III). This request must include the project's title, the student's basic data along with that of the advisor/s, the program and academic year, and the date and signature of authorization by the advisor/s for presentation of the FMP being evaluated. A project report is to be included with the evaluation request. This report is to be submitted electronically and its cover will include, at least, information concerning the author's name, its title, the name of the advisor/s, the program, and academic year. If the FMP is produced and defended at a foreign institution, the report may be drafted in the language corresponding to that institution, and include a summary and its conclusions in Spanish.

Specific regulations

This is a supervised exercise dealing with a topic directly related to one of the program's courses, accounting for 6 program credits.

The paper will have a criminological or victimological theme that, in accordance with UMH regulations, may be:

a. Experimental work related to the program.
b. Literature review and research focused on different fields related to the program.
c. Professional in nature, related to the different areas of professional practice in which this graduate program qualifies for working. Other types not adapted to the aforementioned but that are related to the skills associated with the program.

Access and Admissions

Access

According to the provisions in Article 16 of Royal Decree 1393/2007, of 29 October, amended by Royal Decree 861/2010, of 2 July, which establishes the organization of official university education, the conditions for access to the Master's in Criminological and Victimological Intervention shall be the following:

For access to official master's education, applicants must hold either an official Spanish university degree or one conferred by a higher education institution in a country belonging to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) that entitles access to master's education in such country.

Access may also be granted to those possessing a degree from an educational system outside the EHEA, without requiring its homologation, but following verification by the UMH that the degree represents an educational level that is equivalent to the corresponding official Spanish university degree and that it entitles access to graduate education within the issuing country. Access this way does not mean, under any circumstance, homologation of the degree the interested party holds, or its recognition for anything besides acceptance into a master's program.

Admissions

The 150 places available are distributed in the following manner:
Classroom: 50 places
Distance: 100 places

Applicants with educational backgrounds directly related to the master's course contents will be given admission preference. It is therefore stated explicitly but not exhaustively that applicants holding undergraduate degrees in or equivalent to law, criminology, and/or psychology will receive admission preference.

The selection criteria for applicants are the following:
1) The academic record accounts for 40% of the final assessment. Taken into consideration is the undergraduate education grade point average.
2) Grades in undergraduate subject matter that corresponds to lines of work related to the master's account for 10% of the final assessment.
3) Work done and seminaries attended related to the master's lines of work account for 5% of the final assessment.
4) Professional profile/career related to lines of work in criminological and victimological intervention accounts for 10% of the final assessment.
5) Other criteria accounts for 5% of the final assessment:
a) Knowledge of languages having a scientific interest, preferably English, verified by official certification.
b) Knowledge of statistics.
6) An application essay accounts for 30% of the final assessment. The applicant's arguments for participating in the master's program are considered, along with the compatibility of their expectations with the requirements for participating.

All documentation will be evaluated by the Assessment and Selection Committee, which will be formed by the Master's coordinator and two faculty members. In order to be admitted, applicants must obtain at least 50 points out of the 100 possible.

The criteria for admission and selection will be the same for both the blended learning as well as online modalities. However, and with respect to the latter of the two, special geographic circumstances could be valued in certain cases where it would be very difficult for a student to participate in the program in the blended learning modality.

As a general rule, no student may change their program modality except for ensuing extraordinary circumstances. If a change is requested, it must be stated and justified before the Master's coordinator, who will assess the request, and then either grant or refuse it.

Schedule

The schedule may be consulted at the following link (in Spanish):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rOdryl8aa-4IFuhXOZrRAZuf81uGwScIa0mowNCkOMc/pubhtml

Class times in the blended format are the following:
Wednesdays and Thursdays, 4 - 9 p.m., with the last week of each month intensive:
Wednesdays and Thursdays, 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. and 4 - 9 p.m., and Fridays from 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. and 4 - 7 p.m.

This schedule is illustrative and may be subject to change. The classroom sessions in the blended format of this program are held in the Training Room of the Crímina Research Center (Hélike Building) on the Elche Campus.

Admissions profile

Applicants who have a direct relation with this program's subject matter are preferable. Thus, it is established explicitly, but not exclusively, that applicants possessing degrees in or the equivalent to law, criminology, and/or psychology receive admissions preference.

All documentation is assessed by the Evaluation and Selection Committee, comprised by the Master's Coordinator and two faculty members. For admission, applicants must obtain at least 50 points out of 100.

The admission and selection criteria are the same for both the blended and distance formats. However, for the latter, special geographical circumstances may be valued in certain cases as some students may be unable to enter the program in the blended format.

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