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A bachelor’s in criminology is a four-year social-science degree in the study of crime: why it occurs, how it is measured, who is affected, and how the institutions that respond to it perform. Schools award it as a BA or a BS in Criminology, as a combined BS in Criminology and Criminal Justice, or as a sociology degree with a criminology concentration – criminology is most often housed in a sociology department, and the department’s home shapes the curriculum more than the degree title does.
This page explains what the coursework covers, how the BA and BS differ, what the degree qualifies you for at graduation, and what to verify before enrolling.
It is an undergraduate social-science degree in the causes, patterns, and control of crime. The core is criminological theory plus research methods and statistics, surrounded by substantive coursework in victimology, deviance, corrections, juvenile delinquency, and criminal justice policy.
Both exist. A BA typically pairs the major with more liberal arts breadth and foreign language, while a BS usually requires more statistics, research methods, or an additional quantitative or natural-science component. If you are aiming at analyst roles or graduate school, the BS pathway or the more methods-heavy version of the BA is generally the better preparation.
Approximately 120 semester hours, typically four years full-time. The criminology major itself usually accounts for 36 to 45 of those credits, with the rest going to general education and electives.
No, though the two overlap and some schools combine them. Criminology emphasizes theory and empirical research on crime causation; criminal justice emphasizes the operation of policing, courts, and corrections. If your goal is a practitioner role inside an agency, compare the criminal justice program guide before deciding.
It is a common qualifying major for probation and parole, correctional treatment, juvenile services, victim advocacy, and crime or intelligence analysis. It also satisfies the degree requirement many police agencies and federal investigative agencies set. It does not qualify you for the sociologist occupation, which requires graduate training, and it is not a clinical or licensable credential.
Yes, more than students expect. Statistics is a required course in essentially every criminology program, and the research methods sequence builds on it. The math is applied statistics rather than calculus, but a program that lets you avoid it entirely is not preparing you for the analytical part of the field.
For a full map of this program area, start here: Criminology Program Guide
Every school list on this site is ordered by the BOC Score, computed from the most recent school-level data published by the U.S. Department of Education (College Scorecard and IPEDS). To qualify, a school must be currently operating and accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Each eligible school is then scored on five measures, percentile-ranked against schools at the same credential level:
Schools without enough outcome data appear after ranked schools, without a score. Advertising never affects these rankings. Read the full methodology.
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:Accreditor: Middle States Commission on Higher EducationIPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
The distinction is real but modest, and it varies by school rather than following a national standard.
A BA in Criminology generally sits inside a college of arts and sciences and pairs the major with broader humanities and social-science requirements, often including a foreign language sequence. It suits students who want the degree alongside wide reading, or who plan to combine criminology with a second area such as political science, public policy, or psychology.
A BS in Criminology generally requires more quantitative coursework – an additional statistics course, a second methods course, or a data-analysis requirement – and less breadth elsewhere. It is the stronger preparation if you want analyst work or intend to apply to graduate programs, where admissions committees look specifically at your methods and statistics record.
The practical advice is to compare the two curricula side by side rather than the letters. A methods-heavy BA is better preparation than a thin BS, and both exist.
| Course Topic | What You Learn |
|---|---|
| Criminological Theory | Strain, social disorganization, social learning, control, labeling, routine activity, and life-course explanations of crime |
| Research Methods | Research design, measurement, sampling, survey and field methods, and research ethics |
| Statistics for Social Science | Descriptive and inferential statistics, hypothesis testing, correlation and regression applied to crime data |
| Victimology | Patterns of victimization, victim-offender overlap, and victim services and rights |
| Sociology of Deviance | How societies define, police, and respond to behavior outside the norm |
| Corrections and Penology | Incarceration, community supervision, reentry, and the evidence on recidivism |
| Juvenile Delinquency | Developmental patterns of offending and the separate juvenile system |
| Criminal Justice Policy | How policy is made, evaluated, and revised, and what the evaluation literature shows |
| Internship or Capstone | Agency placement or an independent research project taken from question to defended finding |
Most of what distinguishes a criminology graduate in the job market comes from the theory-plus-methods core rather than the topical courses, which are the enjoyable part but the easier one to replicate through reading. Before enrolling, confirm:
If you are moving faster than a standard four-year plan, compare accelerated criminology programs.
Agency internships – probation departments, prosecutors’ offices, victim services organizations, police crime-analysis units, nonprofit research groups – are how a large share of criminology students enter the field, and they are the piece online students most often have to arrange themselves. Ask each school directly:
Transfer credit can substantially shorten a bachelor’s, particularly for general education and introductory social-science coursework. An associate degree in criminal justice transfers into many criminology programs, though not always into the major core. Rules vary by institution, so confirm:
See Affordable Online Criminology Degrees for more on managing total program cost.
There is no programmatic accreditor for criminology degrees. Verify that the institution holds accreditation from a recognized institutional accreditor – such as HLC or SACSCOC – through the U.S. Department of Education database.
It qualifies you for the community-supervision and services roles that hire at the bachelor’s level, for analyst positions if your methods training is solid, and for agency hiring processes that require a four-year degree. Sworn law enforcement positions still require academy training and state certification, which the degree does not replace.
It does not qualify you for the sociologist occupation – that path runs through a master’s or doctorate – and it is not a clinical credential. If you want to provide counseling or case management under a license, social work is the degree that leads there, and psychology is the closer fit if individual behavior and assessment are what interest you.
A bachelor’s is the working entry credential for practitioner and services roles. A master’s in criminology is what moves you toward research, policy analysis, and agency leadership, and it is required for the academic and sociologist track. Many students enter practice first and return for the master’s once an employer’s tuition benefit or a promotion path makes the case.
Compare degree options:
Data verified: August 11, 2026. Salary, employment, and tuition figures on this page are sourced from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS May 2025; Employment Projections 2024–2034) and the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard (2023 cohort). The source agency and data year are cited inline with every statistic.
Back to Online Criminology Degrees: Programs & Careers (2026)
