Limitations Of Agencies In Achieving Social Control

Question 1

Repeat offenders/Recidivism

Answer 1

-if offenders fail to rehabilitate and continue to commit crime then social control will never be achieved
-Recidivism is one of the main reasons why the prison population has increased over the past 20 years

Question 2

Finance

Answer 2

-Funding is limited and budget cuts have impacted the effectiveness of agencies in achieving social control
-this then leads to a shortage of police officers on the streets, a lack of prison staff and specialist teams

Question 3

Civil liberties and legal barriers

Answer 3

-basic rights and freedoms granted to citizens of a country
-these include:freedom of speech,movement,religious worship etc.
-These can limit social control as they restrict police from achieving social control I.e. foreign nationals with criminal convictions who cannot be removed from the Uk due to prisons being in danger in their home country

Question 4

Access to resources and support

Answer 4

-limit prisoners from being able to rehabilitate and therefore limits success of social control
-Prisoners face problems with finance, accommodation and employment once released from prison
-Lack of support/resources may mean prisoners are tempted to return to crime in order to survive

Question 5

Local and national policies

Answer 5

-local police forces prioritise certain crimes over others depending on the scale of the problem in that area meaning some crimes are not investigated
-National government policies focus on certain crimes at times I.e. Knife crime, Gang related crimes
-can lead police to focus on certain crimes over others, leading to unreliable crime data

Question 6

Environment

Answer 6

-when prisoners are released their home environment can have a large impact on whether or not they stay out of prison
-if an offender returns to the same environment with limited opportunities for social mobility and with criminal friends then it is likely an offender could return to prison
-if an offender moves to a new environment, they may have more opportunities

Question 7

Crime committed by those with moral imperatives

Answer 7

-a moral imperative is a strongly felt principle that compels a person to act
-offenders can commit crime as they believe they are doing the right thing from a moral point of view
-assisted suicide is an example of a crime that could be argued has been committed with a compassionate motive
-When this happens, social control is limited as a persons moral compass surpasses rules of social control