After a series of meetings and work sessions involved the faculty, administrators, and students of Dhaka University including the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Dean of the Faculty of Law, many members of the Department of Sociology, the MS program in Criminology was first launched under the Department of Sociology in 2010.
As a distinct discipline, Criminology was formally introduced as a department in 2012 with the decision of Syndicate. In 2013, Professor Dr. Md. Zia Rahman was appointed as the Founding Chairman of the Department of Criminology. The department started its journey that year with only 30 students in the first batch, but currently has around 300 students in the BSS (Hons) and MS programs alone. The number is significant as the importance of the study of Criminology from a local and global context is becoming more prevalent and many oppurtunities in job sectors are created.