3.3 Limitations Of Agencies Achieving Social Control

Question 1

Which country has the highest prison rate in Western Europe?

Answer 1

England and Wales

Question 2

Which country has the lowest prison rate in Western Europe?

Answer 2

-Norway

Question 3

How many people are currently in prison in the Uk (as of June 23)

Answer 3

-85,851

Question 4

What is the reason for prison population increasing?

Answer 4

-Changes in sentencing policy, remand, recall, reoffending, policing and those on shorter sentences do not get rehabilitation

Question 5

By how much was the budget for HM Prisons and Probation service reduced between 2010-2011 and 2014-15?

Answer 5

• reduced by 20%

Question 6

What is the overall cost of a prison place in England and Wales?

Answer 6

46,696

Question 7

What was the percentage cut for frontline operational staff between 2010 and 2017?

Answer 7

-reduced by 26%

Question 8

What percentage of men and women said they received treatment for a mental health problem in the year before custody?

Answer 8

-26% women
-6% men

Question 9

How much more likely is a self-inflicted death in prison compared with general population?

Answer 9

-4x more likely

Question 10

How many males reoffend within a year of release?
-How does this change for those serving sentences of less than 12 months?

Answer 10

-57%
-63%

Question 11

What is the reoffending rate of women following longer and shorter sentences?

Answer 11

Longer: 58%
Shorter 73%

Question 12

What is the reoffending rate of children and young people?

Answer 12

-63% within a year
-70% less than 12 month sentence

Question 13

Who is most likely to offend?

Answer 13

-those who reoffend commit a further 4 offences. Avg number of re offences per offender increasing since 2009
-More prev convictions, more likely to reoffend. 2017 almost half of offender who already had 10 convictions offended again
-Offenders serving prison sentence more likely than those received fine ranging or community sentence. (Less rehabilitation due to lack of staff, opportunities and funding)
-Males
-Those w drug or alcohol dependence, homeless, few qualifications, unemployed
-Dark figure of crime includes those committed further offences but not caught

Question 14

Limitations in prison preventing social control being achieved
-Since 2011 how much money has been taken from prisons?

Answer 14

-Half a billion pound

Question 15

How many officers were lost from prisons?

Answer 15

-more than 6000

Question 16

How many ambulances called to prison in 7 months?

Answer 16

-305, 9 a week

Question 17

How many assaults on prison staff in the last year?

Answer 17

-6430, 17 a day

Question 18

How many staff needed hospital treatment in the last 7 months?

Answer 18

-at least 3

Question 19

What have the government promised for prisons?

Answer 19

$100m a year for 2500 staff

Question 20

How does social learning theory link with recidivism?

Answer 20

-Offenders learn and copy from others within prison system, better criminals, learn and practice to encourage others to continue to offend on release

Question 21

How does right realism link with recidivism?

Answer 21

-RR argue prison works, offenders rational actors and consider the consequences of their crimes when deciding to offend
-high rates recidivism suggest not true (48% within a year)

Question 22

How does Marxism link with recidivism?

Answer 22

-Unemployed offenders more likely to re-offend as little chance of meeting needs to survive, fits with Merton strain theory
-Prisons run by bourgeoisie who don’t reskill prisoners, keep in place

Question 23

Civil liberties and legal barriers
-What are civil liberties?

Answer 23

-Basic rights and freedoms guaranteed to every individual by law

Question 24

What do civil liberties include?

Answer 24

-Freedom of speech
-freedom of movement
-freedom from arbitrary arrest
-freedom of assembly
-freedom of association
-freedom of religious worship

Question 25

What can civil liberties do?

Answer 25

-Limit social control as people have certain rights
-restrict agencies such as the police from achieving social control

Question 26

Facial recognition

Answer 26

-South wales police, intrusive discrimination and facial recognition violates privacy
-lack safeguards over who’s image on watchlist
-matches faces of people walking past camera to those on watch list, scans distinct points of face, create biometric map, everyone scanned and data taken
-watchlists can contain anyone, images come from anywhere eg social media
-no laws on it
-used at protests, football matches and music festivals
-misidentifies black people
-met police use in ethnically diverse areas

Question 27

Facial recognition being challenged in court

Answer 27

-2020 Liberty client ED bridges won worlds first legal battle to police use of tech

Question 28

Case study for issue of civil liberties being limitation to achieving social control

Answer 28

-Abu Qatada
-2012 ECHR, could be deported to Jordan as risk tried on evidence obtained by torture, Theresa may said would’ve been deported to Jordan if ECHR hadn’t established new grounds for blocking
-deported in 2013

Question 29

How does the due process model limit agencies in achieving social control?

Answer 29

-places importance on the rights of individuals, protected from power of government
-promotes suspect rights - PACE duty solicitor, told why arrested
-presume innocent until proven guilty
-Simon Jenkins
-obstacle course - too many barriers, justice delayed as too many procedures to follow
-Bill of rights - dft rights, terrorism 2007

Question 30

Access to resources and support in prisons? Why do prisons fail to rehabilitate offenders?
-what are 4 reasons why prisons fail to rehabilitate

Answer 30

-Short sentences: not enough time to do intensive work to address issues like drugs, illiteracy and anger management, limited places on courses
-Shortage of experienced prison: 15% cut in no. Of prison officers, fewer to supervise prisoners doing activities to rehabilitate. Locked up at 6pm. In covid 23hrs. Can’t access education
-Limited opportunity for TROL: shortage staff, few trusted prisoners allowed to attend training and interviews
-Inadequate resources for education and training: 2020 chief inspector, half prisons had too few programs, less than 2/5 good

Question 31

What are 3 reasons why courses are not always effective?

Answer 31

-Poorly designed/run
-Targeted at wrong people
-Delivered by poorly trained staff

Question 32

How can education impact on reoffending?

Answer 32

-One year reoffending rate is 34% for prison learners, 43% who don’t engage
-literacy levels in prison lower than general population
-2/3 (62%) of people entering prison population were assessed as having literacy skills of an 11 year old
-now more flex in opportunities like arts to allow to engage
-decline in people participating

Question 33

HMP Birmingham
-obstacles preventing them from rehabilitating prisoners

Answer 33

-2016 worst prison riot in 2 decades
-500 inmates in control of 4 wings
-afraid to leave cell, staff locked selves in offices
-prisoner on safety net, threatened w syringe of blood
-drugs trafficked
-300 moved elsewhere

Question 34

Access to resources and support in the community on release
-what are problems faces by newly released prisoners

Answer 34

-Lack of money: $76 discharge grant on release, little money earned in prison
-lack of job: 1/4 prisoners job to go to on release. Half respondents to a survey said wouldn’t employ ex-offender
-homelessness: half offender homeless, lose housing after 13wks in prison.

Question 35

End Friday release campaign

Answer 35

-NACRO and Howard league campaigning yo stop
-more than 1/3 prion releases on Friday
-race too access accommodation, drug medication and benefits before shutdown on weekend
-sleep rough and use discharge grants until reopen
-vulnerable to reoffending

Question 36

Resources and support for community sentences
-How successful are community sentences?

Answer 36

-More successful than prison in reducing recidivism
-34% reoffend within 12 months of starting their community sentence, compared with 64% f those serving sentences less than 12 months

Question 37

What are 3 reasons for reoffending whilst on a community sentence?

Answer 37

-Inadequate support for complex needs: drug addiction, mental health, homelessness, too few places on specialist programs to help those
-Inadequate supervision by probation: not always followed up
-Failure by privatised community rehabilitation companies: failed to meet targets and don’t supervise offenders closely enough. CRC’s contracts ended 2020

Question 38

Finance - police

Answer 38

-2010 and 2018 overall budget cut was 19%
-led to fall of 2000 officers in same period

Question 39

Consequences of underfunding for police

Answer 39

-rape cases 129 days to solve
-Fewer on beat, less man power to investigate
-2 for theft and crim damage
-RAT - lack capable guardian
-more stress and staff off
-high staff turn over, less experienced staff
-failure to disclose info to CPS, cases collapse
-shortcuts and mistakes
-investigate technology, extra hours. Liam Allan

Question 40

Finance for CPS

Answer 40

-25% budget cut between 2010 and 2018 led to lost of 1/3 staff

Question 41

Consequences of CPS

Answer 41

-Fewer prosecutions, heavier case load, mistakes and short cuts
-miscarriages of justice
-delays in cases in court
-high staff turnover, less experienced staff
-lack time to assist the police
-less disclosure so cases collapse, Liam Allan
-number of people charged with rape in eng and wales falls to lowest in decade
-cps downgrading charges so can pros in mag, quicker and cheaper

Question 42

Finance for judiciary

Answer 42

-Gov plan to recruit additional 2000 police lead to more cases needing to be heard so judiciary under more pressure

Question 43

Consequences for judiciary

Answer 43

-Fewer cases heard due to costs of cc cases
-overscheduling and bumping cases
-backlogs of up to 2 yrs bc of covid
-prisoners on remand for long time
-court rooms empty
-more plea deals

Question 44

Prisons finance

Answer 44

-2010-2018 budget fell by 16% and staff levels by 15%
-more experienced officers left

Question 45

Consequences for prisons

Answer 45

-23hr lock up
-No education
-poor environment
-increase suicdes by 6.2x and SH
-inexperienced officers
-recidivism 60% within year
-staff shortages so more lock up time
-overcrowding
-riots, HMP Birmingham
-The mount
-no rapport between staff and offenders
-increased attacks on staff

Question 46

Probation finance

Answer 46

-2018 40% offenders supervised by NPS, 60% by private sector or community rehab company
-after 2020 CRC’s scrapped due to under performance
-1600 staff in 2014, 9000 in 2016

Question 47

Consequences for probation service

Answer 47

-High staff turnover and shortage of staff
-inadequate supervision of judge orders
-lack rapport with offenders
-poor pre-sentence and pre-release report
-heavy case loads
-suicide and self harm increasing
-inc in reoffending so more in prison and greater pressure on them

Question 48

Charities finance

Answer 48

-Lost more than $3.8 billion in grants from gov in past decade

Question 49

Consequences for charities

Answer 49

-Vol contributions
-if don’t get public donations then can’t function
-gov grants available been reduced

Question 50

Local and national policies
-how do both policies limit social control?

Answer 50

-Limit ability of agencies like police to achieve social control
-new laws and policies change priorities of the police, some offences neglected
-forces criticised for focusing on trivial rather than serious crimes in order to meet targets

Question 51

National policies

Answer 51

-Introduced by the government
-2010-2015 gov introduced a national policy to tackle knife, gun and gang crime. New offences - gang injunction to improve prosecution
-$1.2million dedicated to fund support workers in area, other crimes neglected
-April 2019: Home Secretary making easier to stop and search available for anyone with an offensive weapon without having reasonable suspicion. Available under s60 of CJA and PO act 1994

Question 52

Local policies

Answer 52

Set by police forces in response to local needs
-weapon amnesties. Don’t arrest ppl who surrender weapon.
-2 week amnesty in London in 2017 led to 350 firearm and 40000 rounds of ammunition being handed in
-2017: Sadiq khan - new policies to tackle hate crime. Boosting mets armed anti-terror squad
-cps focus on specific policies. 2017 crackdown on social media hate crime (head of CPS) 20% rise in hate crimes

Question 53

Environment (prisoners on release)

Answer 53

-when released environment plays large role in whether or not stay out of prison. If return to same social circle then likely to reoffend. Others factors likely to influence:
-purposeful activity in prison: education work and activities to aid rehabilitation (bastoy) reduces risk of offending - prisons can’t offer
-employment after prison: more positive environment, only 1 in 4 has a job to go to on release only 12% employers surveyed said they had employed someone with a criminal record in the last 3yrs.

Question 54

Role of family

Answer 54

-family and friends significant factor in enabling successful resettlement on release. Families not involved in sentence planning even when said relying for support after
-arrangements to help maintain and strengthen family ties, variable. Not given priority or resources
-half of men (46%) (71%) women offered free telephone call on first night to let family know
-those who see family 39% less likely to reoffend, familial relations important esp women.
-women further away, avg 46 miles, can be more
-family important to support mental health
-119 prisons, 44 had no functioning safer custody telephone lines in 2019
-phone calls expensive. 30 min call without mobile phone $2.23, mobiles $4.97

Question 55

Crime committed by those with moral imperatives

Answer 55

-moral imperative is a strongly felt principle, compels a person to act. Offenders can commit a crime as believe they are doing the right thing
-assisted suicide is a crimw with compassionate motive. Helping someone to die criminal offence, family member may resort I its express wish of the victim
-Kay Gilberdale, drugs to daughter to help her die.

Question 56

Another example of crime committed by moral imperative

Answer 56

-Suffragettes
-The Suffragettes were part of the ‘Votes for Women’ campaign that had long fought for the right of women to vote in the UK. They used art, debate, propaganda, and attack on property including window smashing and arson to fight for female suffrage

Question 57

How does this link to functionalism?

Answer 57

-Crimes positive and are function of society
-without deviance society stagnate and no change, suffragettes led to women being afforded equal rights
-KG case produces boundary maintenance, shows what is acceptable
-too much of a certain crime is a warning light