Ac3.4

• A strength of the prison service is that it provides programmes to help offenders rehabilitate and reform their behaviour. Statistics suggest fewer then half of the male prison population have a level 1 or 2 education / GCSES, stopping them from reoffending. The national literacy trust and the shannon trust have been awarded £1.8 million to start reading and writing skills programmes in prisons. Achieves social control as an increase in literacy skills will increase their chances of securing work or training when they leave prison and reduces reoffending.
• Prison service


  • Protects the public from harm
• Prisoners serving whole life tariffs

  • There are currently 67 prisoners serving whole life tariffs
• Lucy Letby


  • Convicted of the murders of 7 babies and attempted murders of 6 others
  • Sentenced to 14 whole life tariffs
• Prisoner category system


  Most serious high risk offenders are in Category A, the most secure (e.g. HMP Frankland)
• Prison service


  • Achieves social control as the public are protected from the most serious offenders
• A weakness of the prison service is there is a lack of resources to provide good quality rehabilitation and education services
• According to an Oftsed inspector none of the prison education were rated outstanding
• Literacy levels amongst the prison population remain significantly lower than the general population
• 62% of the people entering prison were assessed as having literacy skills of an 11 year old
• Not effective in achieving social control as the access to resources and support limits prisoners from being able to rehabilitate
• Upon release an offender will face problems with finance, accommodation and employment or training opportunities and as a result reoffend
• A weakness of the prison service are the recidivism rates meaning public are not protected in the long term. The prison Reform Trust statistics suggest that 42% of adults are reconvicted within one year of being released. For petty offenders serving sentence of less than 12 months is 63%. Not effective in achieving social control because reoffending figures are high and therefore prison is not acting as a form of deterrence and preventing future offending.
• A strength of the police is that they work in the community to prevent crime, keep the public safe, and to combat anti social behaviou. For example they act as a visible deterrent and can issue sanctions such as penalty notices for crimes such as shoplifting or being drunk and disorderly. They also have powers of stop and search and arrest under PACE 1984. Achieves social control as they have positive effectiveness in preventing crime, for example Essex police found 15 minutes of police patrol reduces violent crime by 70%.
• A strength of the police is that there are many specialist units trained to deal with issues such as terrorism or incidents involving weapons. In the UK there are roughly 164,000 police officers which includes many different specialist roles, such as anti terrorism and special branch officers. Police effective in social control because of their specialist they are able to tackle the various types of crime that occur And maintain social control
• A weakness of the police is that due to a lack of funding there are not enough police officers to maintain external social control. For example over the past 5 years, an average of 774 burglaries have gone unsolved every day across England and Wales and the number of offenders facing justice has fallen by 56%. Showing police not effective in achieving social control as they prioritise certain crimes and fail to act as a deterrence in crime.
• A weakness of the police is there is evidence that police are dropping investigations into crimes due to lack of finance. Longer investigations cost more money so police forces are tempted to drop serious cases because they take much longer to investigate, for example, rape cases take an average of 129 days compared to 2 days for criminal damage. Showing no social control as offenders are not being punished for their crimes which does not protect the public or act as a deterrent.