AC4.2 EXPLAIN HOW SOCIAL CHANGES AFFECT POLICY DEVELOPMENT

• Drink driving


  Public perceptions of drink driving
• For most of the 20th century drink driving was normalised for large sections of the population. It is only in recent years that it has become socially unacceptable and deviant.
• Change in the policy on drink driving


  1. 1925 - First laws regulating driving of a car

  2. 1930, 1960, 1962 - Law modified, penalties got progressively stiffer

  3. 1967 - Introduction of legal maximums for alcohol while driving and the introduction of the roadside breathalyser

  4. 2002 - Drivers convicted of causing death by driving when under the influence required to pass an extended test before being allowed to drive again

  5. 2004 - Maximum penalty for causing death by driving when under the influence increased to 14 years
• Breathalyser


  • Approved for use in 1968, before this time law enforcement was little more than guesswork
• Changing public perceptions


  Drinking and driving came to be seen as unacceptable and anti-social, driven by government campaigns emphasising the dangers and harm
• In 1979 half of all young drivers admitted to driving under the influence, by 2014 over 90% of drivers said it was wrong and they would feel shamed if they were caught doing it
• Race relations in the UK in the past


  At the start of 1950s Britain was largely a white nation, those that did come faced considerable discrimination and hostility, particularly in housing and employment
• Changes in policy on race relations


  1. 1965 - Race Relations Act banned discrimination in public places

  2. 1968 - Race Relations Act outlawed discrimination in employment, housing, and public services

  3. 1976 - New act further strengthened the law and made both direct and indirect discrimination illegal

  4. 2010 - Equality Act made discrimination on the basis of race, sex, age, and disability illegal
• Changing attitudes to race


  Proportion of white respondents who say they would mind "a little" or "a lot" if a close relative married someone who was black or Asian fell from more than 50% in 1989 to about 25% in 2013, racial prejudice now widely seen as wrong, unacceptable, and indicative of a poor education
• Changes in demography


  Increasingly mixed nature of the British population, many people now have a non-white relative, mixed race friendships are the increasingly the norm, numbers of non-whites and mixed heritage have grown and now number about 15% of the population
• Same-sex relationships in the past

  Illegal and punishable by prison terms and even death, it was only in 2020 that same sex relationship attained equal status as heterosexual relationships in all parts of the UK
• Changes in same-sex rights/laws (policy)


  1. 1861 - Offences Against the Person Act downgraded punishment to life imprisonment

  2. 1967 - Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised private sex acts between consenting men over 21

  3. 2003 - Section 28 repealed

  4. 2004 - Civil Partnership Act allowed same-sex couples to enter into same-sex unions with the same rights as married couples

  5. 2014 - Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 recognised same sex marriages
• The Wolfenden Report (1957) strongly recommended the decriminalisation of sexual acts between adult men
• Changing attitudes to issues of personal morality


  Laws on marriage, divorce, abortion and homosexuality changed in many societies
• Secularisation


  Laws on morality no longer reflected what the church thought about an issue