Ac3.3 Flashcards
(7 cards)
Repeat offenders
These are offenders who have already been punished, committing more offences when released. The current issue is that within a year of release 48% of adult male prisoners re offend and community sentence orders at 56% re offending rate and women having 58% re offending rate. With these number being higher for sentence 12 months or shorter. This links to the police/prison/probation with higher levels of overcrowding limiting social control as the prisoner to staff ratio is so high they cannot control the offender’s behaviour. For probation it means that there is increased strain on the services trying to support the offenders on release. Another impact on social control for prison and probation is that higher reoffending rates means that offenders will learn more about criminality about their time in prison leading to smarter criminals that are harder to control.
Civil liberties and legal barriers
Agencies cannot control behaviours when restricted by legal codes and guidelines. This is an issue for social control as liberties like Human rights law, PACE ACT can restrict agencies ability to control behaviour. This links to the police as there is frustration with the right to remain silent under PACE as the police cannot do whatever they want to gain justice likewise with protest powers as police dont have the right to stop or prevent people from wide scale disruption e.g. just stop oil. This also links to the CPS as they have to struggle with the international law which allows diplomatic immunity which gives diplomats from other countries protections from prosecution e.g. Harry Dunn was hit by the wife of a diplomat and fled to the USA leading there to be no trial.
Access to resources and support
Agencies ability to get resources to help them socially control faces a current issue with poor conditions of buildings limited staffing and budget cuts. This was seen in prisons with personnel as there are major issues with staffing and terrible conditions causing prisoners to be confided to cells for 23hrs a day meaning they cannot receive rehab and education and training to prevent further crimes, causing many prisoners to have low levels of literacy rates 51% those equivalent to an 11 year old child. There is an issue with the probation service as offenders have a considerable lack of resources available to help support them once released e.g. £46 discharge grant upon release-> higher re offending.
Finances
Agencies ability to tackle crime is limited due to low levels of funding and cuts. This links to all agencies with there being budgets cuts of 25% to all agencies. This is causing staffing problems in agencies like the police with their being cuts in all types of roles especially in detectives->lower social control. Cps has also faced cuts leading to them being able to secure less convictions->more criminals on the street and lower social control. This leads to prison and probation having less rehabilitation services causing’s them to be seen as a less important part of the criminal justice system causing higher re offending rates and less social control. With charities and pressure groups also losing more than £3.8billion in grants causing them to not be able to function->less support and help->more crime.
Local and national policies
Agencies often are given crimes to prioritise from the government e.g. knife crime as the government puts pressure on the police/cps to tackle this crime while facing limited resources causing other types of crime to get missed. This is also seen in the CPS who have a case focus as high prolife crime will often require greater attention with other crimes getting less attention as they are deemed less important causing these to go undetected-> less social control like the Damilola Taylor case which has a very high prioritisation by the cps and police.
Environment
Agencies cannot control the environment an offender lives/works in as they cannot control your friends, family wealth education which are all reasons why offenders might fall back into crime causing higher re offending rates which impacts police/probation/courts which is shown as 68% of prisoners have no family visitors, 39% have no home to go to and 27% have no job to go to causing them to reoffend as their environment supports that. This also causes issue with rehabilitation in police/probation. E.g. Token economies or therapy as outside of prison you don’t receive these and are reversed by the poor environment you live in.
Crimes committed by those with moral imperatives
Agencies cannot control people who strongly believe that what they are doing is morally correct. Certain types of crime in the UK have offenders who strongly believe that it should not be a crime. This applies to the police/cps with them not being able to stop peoples beliefs causing more first time offenders-> more crime and less social control as seen with honour crime e.g. Banaz Mahmood. This also links to the police and moral crimes as they cannot control peoples morals e.g. assisted suicide.
