Growth of Crime in the UK during 1970-1980 - Essay Example

Emergence of Crime Prevention and Community Safety in the Context of the Crisis of Governance That Afflicted the UK during 1970 and 1980 Occurrence of crime is any important area of concern for all the nations around the world which needs to be tackled efficiently and effectively because it is not a disease which can be remedied with medicines but a social disorder where the government not only has to prevent but to eradicate criminality from the society. According to Lea (2007) the idea of crime prevention involves the belief that crime should be prevented from occurring at the first place rather that punishing the criminal after the crime is occurred. Reiner (2000, p72) mentioned that crime is a topic of perennial popular fascination as indicated by its centrality as a theme in the mass media. Representations of crime and punishment offer, in varying measure, titillating glimpses of the seductions of deviance, moral boundary maintenance and an anxiety arousing frisson of fear. It is further mentioned that election campaigns did not mentioned crime as an important issue until 1970 when Margaret Thatcher developed law and order into a major arena of ideological conflict. Thus it is evident that UK had realized the importance of community safety and crime prevention during the late 1970’s which prompted the government to chalk out policies and framework for crime prevention. This paper examines the emergence of crime prevention and community safety in the context of the ‘crisis’ of governance that afflicted the United Kingdom during 1970 and 1980. Growth of crime during 1970 – 1980 Reiner (2000, p.81) mentioned that the increases in recorded crime levels were fuelled further after the mid 1970s by the consequences of the fundamental shift in the political economy represented by the return of free market economies and the deregulation of increasingly globalized market. It is further mentioned that the consequences of crime and social cohesion are enormous because of the widening of social divisions, and growth fo social exclusions. As social exclusions, economic, insecurity and inequality grew; the motives and opportunities of crime multiplied and the restraining effects of both formal and informal social controls are eroded. Dingwall and Davenport (cited in Fennell, 1995, p. 21) mentioned that the United Kingdom today faces a problem of crime which could not possibly have been forecast at the end of the Second World War. It is further stated that crime rate increased from 50,000 reported crimes in 1950 to 1.6 million in 1970 which further increased to 2.5 million in 1980. It is further stated in a comparative study by Biles that in the period between 1960 and 1979 the recorded crime rose by 177 per cent in England and Wales (Fennel, 1995, p27). Lea (2007) mentioned that there has been increasing concern with rising crime and falling police clearups during 1980 and argues that opportunist offenders were the ones difficult to be traced who indulged in mass property thefts which were untraceable and identical with other products also. Reiner (2000, p.82) mentioned that recorded crime rates rocketed during free market triumphalism in 1980s which was mainly in property crimes. Economic deprivation, family breakdown, rapid population turnover contributed to the general decline of the processes of ‘informal social control’ by which local communities discouraged criminality. The figure 1 shows the increasing trend in property crimes during 1980’s which was noticed by Margaret Thatcher and was the agenda of her election campaign. The figure 2 shows the annual percentage change in property crime from 1978 to 1990 which is growing year by year. According to research conducted by Police Federation of England and Wales, household consumption is recognized as the principal economic indicator of economic well being thereby increasing the expectations of lifetime income and value of goods for theft (www.polfed.org). The inexorable rise in recorded crime that began in the late 1950s was kick started by a number of consequences of the development of mass consumerist ‘affluent society’ which had several implications for the growth of property crimes constituting the bulk of offending. The creation and dispersion of attractive and vulnerable criminal targets in the shape of new, widely available consumer goods, the car and its equipment proliferated as the most common victim of an offence, and mass produced consumer durables were not only tempting to steal but relatively anonymous and untraceable (Reiner, 2000, p81). Simple costs and benefits approach replaced the search for the causes of crime among governments and Home Office departments of ‘administrative criminology’ during 1980’s. Deflem and Chicoine (2010) while summarizing David Garlands ‘The Culture of Control’ mentioned that crime control was mainly encouraged by social, economic and political forces. It further explains the radical changes that have occurred in the fields of crime control and criminal justice since 1970. Rowbotham (2009) mentioned that in terms of historical context, there was identifiable 19th century concern about supposedly burgeoning class of habitual criminals, consequently recidivists of any description, even if guilty only of repeated minor offences, were likely to be classified as part of the core of that class. Crime Prevention Strategies According to Lea (2007) physical prevention was oriented to removing the physical opportunities to commit crime whereas social prevention was oriented to strengthen the communities and restore informal surveillance and social control of crime. As part of physical prevention, police started giving free crime prevention advice funded by the governments Safer Cities programme which gave rise to innovative technologies like CCTV used in contemporary settings. Social prevention techniques involved neighborhoods taking a measure of responsibility for their security. The police being a leading agency had set up ‘Community Liaison Officer’ in 1970s wherein the representatives of local community could discuss their crime problems with the police. Crime Prevention and Community Safety According to Lea (2007) the state and its agencies were less than efficient to open a number of interpretations. Hughes, McLaughlin and Muncie (2002) mentioned that constant reminders and warnings about the seeming growth of crime and disorder are hard to avoid in countries such as United Kingdom. Issues of safety and security, and of the prevention and reduction of crime and fear, increasingly provide the focus for many of the most compelling and controversial questions about the nature of criminal justice and allied processes of social control across social contemporary societies. Siegel (2009, p.112) mentioned that if crime is spread throughout the social structure, then it follows that the factors that came cause crime should be found within all social and economic groups. It is further stated that people commit crimes as a result of the experiences they have while they are being socialized by the various organizations, institutions, and processes of society. Gilling (1997, p71) mentioned that the entire nineteenth century was taken up with the use of crime prevention to justify institutional forms of crime control, first with policing, for which the preventive principle was paramount and then with the penal policy in the form of prisons, alternative arrangements for managing juvenile offenders, and non custodial alternatives, culminating at the beginning of the twentieth century with the statutory establishment of the probation service. It is pertinent to mention that many of these changes entailed an extension of crime prevention from criminal justice to social policy. It is further stated that since 1980 crime prevention has moved from being of marginal intellectual interest to become a significant concern of governments in many countries and regions with specific practices and policies realized at national, regional and multi local levels. Lea (2007) mentioned that physical prevention and social prevention were the main types developed as crime prevention strategies. In 1970s, self proclaimed ‘realism’ became widespread which was sceptical about talk of ‘root causes’ of crime. Martinson and others seminal evaluation of ‘what works’ in penal treatment were rapidly misread as ‘nothing works’. Henry (2009, p1) stated that there was an increasing expectations among policymakers that public services should be organized and delivered locally through multiagency partnerships. Multiagency partnerships focusing on crime prevention, crime reduction and community safety have been developing since 1980s which were given statutory forces through Crime and Disorder Act, 1998 in England and Wales. Siegel (2009, p.96) mentioned that few advocates of rational choice theory proposed situational crime prevention as one of the tool to minimize crime by reducing the opportunities to people to commit crime. The idea behind this was that crime can be prevented or displaced through the use of residential architectural designs that reduce criminal opportunities such as well lit housing projects that maximize surveillance. Further situational crime prevention has been met with considerable scepticism from academic criminologists primarily for its indifference with social welfare. It has been seen as a law and order agenda mainly focusing of making public places secure for business and as supplanting social welfare policies as means of responding to crime (Knepper, 2009). ‘Community’ began to feature prominently in UK public policy debates in the 1960s as part of the social democratic state’s response to the problems of inner cities, marked by deepening poverty, low levels of education achievement, problem families and the decline of conventional forms of political representation and participation. It is further mentioned that community shares the responsibility for crime prevention and for which Home Office identified ‘situational crime prevention’ initiatives and addressed ‘neighborhood decline’ as future developments. Lea (2007) mentioned that as part of community safety, Home Office instructed the local authorities of the community to take some responsibility for crime prevention. McKenzie (1998, p.16) mentioned that traditional enforcement led response characteristic of the late 1970s and early 1980s was supplemented by other policing strategies which involve the dispersal of responsibility of personal safety and crime control amongst those who are able and willing to bear it which produces an inequitable and unstable system of policing. Effects of Policies on contemporary situation Mathews and Pitts (2001, p.26) mentioned that the problems of crime and disorder as ascribed to a malaise of community and their solution is seen as the regeneration of community. Glendinning, Powell and Rummery (2002, p.155) mentioned that Home Office Standing Conference on Crime Prevention Report of 1991 is viewed as both key text and a crucial moment in the evolution of partnership approaches to crime. The concept of ‘crime prevention’ was narrowly interpreted in the Morgan Report which served to reinforce the belief that it was the sole responsibility of the police. Community Safety on the other hand was open to wider definition and “could encourage greater participation from all sections of the community in the fight against crime. The Morgan report further argued that local authority was the natural focus for coordinating in collaboration with police, the full range of activities necessary for improving community safety.; thus supporting the idea that local authorities should be given the statutory duty and resources to coordinate local crime prevention and community safety initiatives. According to Garland (2001) crime control reveals much of society as whole and changes are important since these institutions are part of a system of governance and social order The central changes in the fields of crime control include the decline of rehabilitative ideal, re-emergence of punitive and expressive justice, changes in the emotional tome of crime policy, the return of the victim, protection of public, transformation of criminology, expanding infrastructure of crime prevention and community safety, commercialization of crime control change in management styles and a perpetual sense of crisis (Deflem and Chicoine, 2010). Stenson and Cowell (1991, p.75) mentioned that increasing number of local authorities developing crime reduction strategies across all departments to reduce the risk of crime by targeting high risk areas, incorporating crime prevention targets into departmental objectives and by helping to bring their housing stock up to minimum standard of security, using their resources and expertise to strengthen communities by providing support for parents, activities for children and young people, youth crime prevention initiatives, education and training for the unemployed, and by supporting community organizations and by providing practical support for victims of crime by funding victim support schemes, tackling domestic violence and racially motivated crime, funding refuges and crisis centres and promoting insurance and compensation schemes. Reiner (2000, p.81) mentioned that the spread of insurance cover for the expensive durables would make it much more likely that their theft would be recorded and reported. Moreover proliferation of consumer goods also heightened a sense of relative deprivation amongst those who were excluded from the new affluence. In the context of several policies formulated by the Home Office for crime prevention and community safety during 1970 and 1980, Garland has thus evolved a new culture of crime control which have changed dramatically in the culture that influences the attitudes and actions of individuals working in the system that focuses on number of issues like the transformation of penal welfarism, new criminology of control which focus on technical aspects bypassing the realm of values and individuals’ integration and an economic style of reasoning which aims at increasing the focus on output i.e. services rather than outcomes and realigned the practices of crime control to meet performance indicators. Conclusion The crime patterns in UK in late 1970s and early 1980s mostly indicate crime activities in property crimes. The reason for the increasing crime trend is attributed to consumer durables which were difficult to trace and lack of surveillance. However society also plays a crucial role in the making of criminal as suggested in various criminological theories. The trend was hidden under the blanket until it was noticed and included in election campaign by Margaret Thatcher. However various researches have confirmed the inclusion of community to prevent criminal activities because people who commit crime are part of the society. The Home Office formulated a framework entitling local authorities giving them statutory status to enforce community policing so as to prevent crime. The policy and acts evolved during 1970 and 1980 have resulted in improved legislations and recommendations for prevention of crime and community safety. References 1. Lea, J (2007) Crime Prevention and Community Safety, http://www.bunker8.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ 2. Reiner, Robert (2000) Crime and Control in Britain, Sociology, Vol. 34,No. 1United Kingdom BSA Publications Limited, spp. 71–94. 3. Fennell, P (1995) Criminal justice in Europe: a comparative study, Dingwall G.S. and Davenport, The Evolution of Criminal Justice Policy in UK, Oxford University Press, Great Britain 4. Crime and the Economy, (2009) Research Conducted by the Police Federation of England and Wales, www.polfed.org 5. Deflem M and Chicoine, S (2010) A Summary of the Culture of control by David Garland, http://www.cas.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/zGarlandsum.html 6. Rowbotham, J (2009) Turning away from criminal intent: Reflecting on Victorian and Edwardian strategies for promoting desistance amongst petty offenders, Theoretical Criminology, Vol 13, No 105 http://tcr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/1/105 7. Gilling, D (1997) Crime prevention: theory, policy, and politics, Routledge, Great Britain 8. Hughes, G., McLaughlin E, Muncie, J (2002) Crime Prevention and Community Safety: New Directions, Sage Publication, UK 9. Henry, A (2009) Partnerships and communities of practice: a social learning perspective on crime prevention and community safety in Scotland, University of Edinburgh, http://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk 10. Siegel, L (2009) Introduction to Criminal Justice, Cengage Learning, United States. 11. Knepper, P (2009) How Situational Crime Prevention Contributes to Social Welfare, Liverpool Law Review, Volume 30, Number 1, 57-75,  12. McKenzie I.K (1998) Law, power, and justice in England and Wales, Greenwood Publishing Group, UK 13. Mathews, R and Pitts J (2001) Crime, disorder and community safety: a new agenda?, Routledge, UK 14. Glendinnig, C, Powell, M.A. and Rummery K (2002) Partnerships, New Labour and the governance of welfare, The Policy Press, UK 15. Stenson K and Cowell, D (1991) The Politics of crime control, Sage Publications, Great Britain. Read More