AC3.3 - Examine the limitations of agencies in achieving social control Flashcards
What are the limits of control and how do they affect agencies’ ability to achieve social control?
Limits of control are anything that limits agencies and their power to enforce social control. For example, lack of resources, underfunding, and a lack of staff. This effects agencies such as the police, CPS, prisons, and the probation services.
Recidivism rates
Custodial sentences have high recidivism rates amongst young offenders and older offenders alike.
In 2019, over half a million new offences were committed by people who had either been released from prison, given suspended sentences, community sentences or a warning. That’s an overall recidivism rate of 28%
Recidivism rates for offenders who had been released from just prison had a reoffending rate of 36% for all prisoners and 64% for short sentences with less than 12 months
The rising population
Repeat offending is one of the reasons for the rising prison population as those released on licence will be made to serve the rest of their sentence if they reoffend during the licence period.
However, courts are giving longer sentences and so this is less of a cause for the ring prison population as in 2018, sentences for indictable offences were on average 26 months longer than they had been 10 years earlier.
Who reoffends?
Offenders who have more than 10 offences are likely to offend again
Offenders who receive a custodial sentence are more likely to offend compared to a warning, fine or community sentence
Males are more likely to offend than females
Offenders with drug or alcohol addictions are more likely to offend
The dark figure of re-offending suggests that these figures only apply to cases where the suspect has been found guilty, so unsolved cases, or mistried are not included.
Theories such as right realism argue that prison works. And that offenders are rational actors so the fear of being jailed acts as a deterrent to offending. However, high recidivism rates show that this is not so and that poverty can cause someone to negate rational thinking
Marxism argues that unemployed offenders are more likely to re-offend since they have little chance of meeting their needs if they have to solely survive on benefits
Civil liberties and legal barriers:
Human rights abuses are often carried out in ‘police states’ where they have little restriction on their power. This allows them to force individuals to act in the way the government wishes them to. In such states, criticism of the government or their agencies may not be tolerated and one can easily be locked up for such actions. For example, current day america where citizens speaking out against facism have gone missing or have been deported illegally,
What are civil liberties?
Freedom of speech
Freedom of assembly and freedom to associate with others
Freedom of movement
Freedom from arbitrary arrest
Freedom of religion and conscience
Freedom from detention without trial
Right to privacy
Due process
Many of these civil rights are aspects of the due process model of justice. For example, freedom from arbitrary arrest and freedom from detention without trial are features of the due process model as it protects individual rights against the states power and their agencies
Access to resources and support
One aim of imprisonment is rehabilitation bun prisons fail to do this for several reasons:
Short sentences prevent prisons from rehabilitating prisoners as there isn’t enough tie for intensive work to address problems such as drug abuse, anger issues, literacy, mental health etc and this is made worse by underfunding
There are inadequate resources for education and training for prisoners according to the 2020 report from the chief inspector of prisons who concluded that there are few too programmes of useful activity in prisons
15% cut of prison officers means that prisoners are locked up by 6pm which ,limits their access to recreational and education facilities such as library use
Release on temporary licence is meant to allow offenders out to attend training and employment programmes, yet very few take advantage of this scheme due to staff shortages
Resources and support from the community:
The lack of money means prisoners earn very little from working in prison and receive only £46 discharge grant on their release
Lack of a jobs are a huge problem as many prisons do not have a job on their release
Homelessness is also a big problem with released offenders as according to Nacro, only 1 in 9 offenders have a placement on release and prisoners lose entitlement to housing benefit if they are expected to spend more than 13 weeks in prison
A third of all releases occur on a Friday, meaning offenders often cannot acquire the help needed before the weekend shutdown. Pressure groups and charities such as Nacro have called for the elimination of friday releases
Community sentences
Community sentences allow convicts to serve their sentences amongst the community under the supervision of the probation service. Community sentences are more successful at reducing recidivism
For example, only 34 reoffend within 12 months of starting their sentence
However, a significant minority do offend due to the lack of adequate support for complex needs such as drug addictions, mental health problems and homelessness
Inadequate supervision by probation services are also a problem as people have criticized them for being too lax in allowing offenders to miss their appointments
The police (finance)
Without adequate finance to fund their operations, agencies such as the police, prisons and CPS will be unable to achieve effective social control. Their budgets mostly come from public funds, yet governments spending cuts have had a significantly negative impact on their effectiveness.
From 2010-18, the polices overall budget was cut by 19% and the funds from the central government were cut by 30%
This led to the fall of 20,000 police numbers in the same period as a national shortage of detectives
There is evidence that the police are dropping investigations into crimes, including sexual offenses , violent attacks or arson.
For example, the Metropolitan police dropped 2.9 timed as many cases on the day they were reported in 2018 as they did in 2013
This is an example of the police failing to ensure public safety as they are knowingly letting crimes go unpunished, which enables more crimes to be committed without fear of punishment.
The cps (finance)
Between 2010 and 2018, a quarter of the CPS’s budget was cut and the organisation lost a third of its staff. The head of CPS in 2018 said the police and CPS were failing to investigate many cases effectively.
This included serious crimes such as rape, fraud and modern slavery
They also claimed that the CPS and police lacked the skills and resources needed to combat crimes
The CPS has also been accused of downgrading charges so that it can prosecute cases in the magistrates court but this means offenders get off with lighter charges and this means they do not meet aims of punishment such as deterrence, retribution, public safety etc
Prisons (finance)
Between 2010 and 2018, the prisons budget feel by 16% and staff levels by 15% while many more experienced officers left he service
Prisons are described as being in crisis, with rising levels of suicides, self harm, and assaults
Overcrowding and understaffing means staff are unsafe and cannot effectively control the prisoners which can also mean prisoners are unsafe.
There is a lack of rehabilitation facilities such as anger management, token economies, therapies, work experience and educational opportunities
Privatisation may have contributed to this as in 2016, the worst of the uk prison riots took place in a privately run prison
Reports stated that this was a result of understaffing
The probation services (limitations)
Privatisation
Lack of confidence in services by judges, victims, and the public
Underfunding
Local and national policies
Some of the priorities of the different police forces around the country are set nationally by the home office, but others are set locally in response to local needs
For example, ears with high knife crime rates will have police extra measures such as stop and searches
Weapons amnesties
Good examples of local priority
Local police forces hold amnesties where they will not arrest people who surrender illegal weapons
Amnesties are used to reduce criminal use of weapons in the local area
They may also be used if new laws make something illegal that wasn’t illegal previously
Moral panic
By both local and national levels, the priority of the police and CPS can change through media coverage and moral mania about a particular type of crime. However, the police can also de-prioritise a case when its too trivial or complicated as it can waste police resources
A moral imperative is an overriding sense of what is right and wrong- which can compel someone to break the law in order to uphold moral values
For example, Clive Pontin broke the law by passing secret information to an MP about the sinking Argentinian ship during the Falklands War. he argued that he had done so in the public’s interest.
Another example is the sefergetts movement that campaigns for women’s rights often through illegal measures such as arson.
Functionalists such as Durkheim believe that without deviance, new social values would not emerge, and change would not be possible. For example, the suffragettes breaking the law drew attention to injustice and allowed change to occur
