3.3

• although agencies of social control such as prisons and the police seek to achieve social control, they are not always successful, e.g. prisons may lack resources + support needed to rehabilitate offenders + the police don't have unlimited powers to detain people whom they suspect are offenders
• repeat offending-recidivism rates: social control measures are not always effective, as can be seen from the recidivism (repeat offending) rates
• repeat offending-recidivism rates: e.g. 2019 = if we take all offenders who have been given a warning, fine, community sentence or suspended sentence in the previous 12 months, plus all the prisoners who were released from jail in that period, these people between them committed over half a million new offences, overall recidivism rate of around 28%
• repeat offending-recidivism rates: e.g. around 37% of juvenile offenders (aged 10-17) re-offend within a year, for juveniles released from custody, 63% are re-convinced within a year
• repeat offending-recidivism rates: on average those who re-offend commit a further four offences each, the average number of re-offences per offender has been gradually rising since 2009
• repeat offending-the rising prison population: the prison population today is almost double what it was in 1993, repeat offending is one reason for this increase
• repeat offending-the rising prison population: for example = those released from prison on licence will be recalled to serve the rest of their sentence if they commit a further offence during the licence period
• repeat offending-the rising prison population: however repeat offending is less important as a cause of the rising prison population that the fact that courts are now giving longer sentences