Social Exclusion and Crime Prevention

This assignment delves into the complex relationship between social exclusion and crime. It analyzes various theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence to understand how economic marginalization, lack of opportunities, and discrimination contribute to criminal behavior. Furthermore, it examines different approaches and policies aimed at preventing crime by addressing social exclusion issues, including community safety programs, youth support initiatives, and welfare reforms.

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Criminologies of Crime Control
Assessment 1
16-Nov-17
(Student Details: )

ESSAY 2
Social exclusion refers to the results which the people or the areas have to bear as a result of
combination of problems like poor housing, poor skills, unemployment, low incomes, poor
health, family breakdown and high crime. Social exclusion is more about being deprived of
income and the amenities earn the daily basics (Musterd and Ostendorf, 2013). The problems
associated with social exclusion are linked in a mutual manner which keeps on getting
reinforced, creating a vicious cycle in the lives of the people. It is a result of what happens to
people when they do not get a fair deal across their lives and is linked to the disadvantage faced
since birth. There are numerous reasons and results of social inclusion which includes poverty,
low income, poor mental or physical health, unemployment, poor parenting, discrimination,
crime and poor housing. In the last thirty years, the social exclusion has come out to be a huge
problem in UK (Hickey and Toit, 2013). This is due to the moral unequal society which have
been formed during this period, where a certain set of people have prospered, whilst the other
strata has failed miserably due to various reasons. In short, they have been excluded from the
general prosperity. Such grave circumstances often push the people towards crime and criminal
activities as a result of this, has seen a boom. This is the reason why it is often suggested that by
tackling social exclusion, crime can be prevented (Littlewood, Glorieux and Jönsson, 2017). In
the following parts, a discussion has been undertaken to support this very notion and to highlight
the steps needed for tackling social exclusion.
Often questions are asked as to why social exclusion should be given any importance. The same
can be answered owing to the reasons presented here, for prioritising social exclusion. During the
mid-1990s, UK was differentiated from the competitors in European Union owing to high levels
of social exclusion. UK gained the top spot in the European League as a result of the children
growing up in workless households, for drug usage amongst the young people and for the

ESSAY 3
teenage pregnancy rates. The country also had the highest rates of adult illiteracy across the
Europe as only 20% of the youth under 18 years of age stayed in education. Most of these figures
took a worse turn during the 1980s and 1990s. From 1980s to 1995, the crime rates were
doubled, and from 1979 to 1995, child poverty trebled. The exclusions from school were
recorded to have been quadrupled during the periods of 1990-91 and 1996-97, along with the
notified drug addicts quadrupling in the decade. In early 1990s, around 2,000 people were
sleeping roughly every night in central London (BRIS, 2001).
The most serious kinds of social exclusion, for instance pregnancy of girls under 16, rough
sleeping and exclusion from school affected a fraction of 1% of population. However, 10%
suffered from serious issues which included not learning to work, actual working, alcohol
dependency, and prison sentence by age of 46. Social exclusion results in high human costs in
terms of reduced social cohesion, higher stress levels, higher crime levels and fear of crime, and
reduced mobility, in addition to impact on children, underachieved education, low income and
poor access to services. In terms of the financial costs, it comes in terms of paying for crime,
drug misuse, unemployment, and lost tax revenues. The business suffers in terms of lost
customers, less skilled workers and collapse in market, resulting in combined social failure
(BRIS, 2001). Thus, there is a need to focus on this menace.
In order to tackle the issue of social exclusion, there is a need to understand the reason why it is
such a big issue. Social exclusion is a grave issue which not only has economic negated impact,
but also proves to be a danger for the society. This is because the youth which are born in such
conditions which are full of social exclusion, particularly where they have no food or shelter,
they resort to criminal activities to fulfil their needs, particularly because social exclusion is
coupled with lack of education and lack of employment opportunities. So, as a last resort, crime

ESSAY 4
is seen as a way of solving their problems. However, this often translates into grave criminal
activities, in terms of going from robbery to murder just for getting money. Apart from this, such
individuals indulge in drug abuse, which spoils them. To make the matters worse, they become
part of relationships which are abusive in nature. Their children have to face the wrath of
violence, anger, abuse and even poverty, which completes this vicious cycle of social exclusion
(Hale, 2013).
The reason for social exclusion becoming such a severe menace is the failure of effective
government policies. The government policies have not been effective in tackling this problem.
In a number of cases, a joint response is not attained by the structure of Government, particularly
with regards to preventing social exclusion for poor even when it is known that such people are
at risk and any incident can trigger social exclusion, where investment in prevention of such
could have saved money in long term. There has also been a failure in the reintegration of poor
who had been excluded. Upon becoming homeless, expelled from school or unemployed, the
damage is not repaired. Lastly, the basic services in private and public sectors remain at the
weakest in needful areas (MacDonald, 2015).
In context of social exclusion and young people, Audit Commission (1998) through their white
paper Misspent Youth highlighted that there was a link between attainment of education and
youth crime resulting from social exclusion. It was stated that by increasing the number of young
individuals continuing their education would result in instances of youth offending, thus
resulting in an overall prevention of social exclusion. Bullen et al (2000) cited the Blair in stating
that the exclusions could be reduced by giving the citizens something to do and would result in
reducing the cycle of poverty, by putting the focus on education and making it an inseparable
part of the lives of the youth. In the view of Sparkes (1999), such people who leave the school

ESSAY 5
lacking proper education attainment were at a high risk of suffering from social exclusion as was
the case with the adults. Another measure given to tackle this problem was given by McLaughlin
et al (2001) by targeting the population at risk which could help in condemnation of such acts.
The reason for putting focus on removing social exclusion is also based on the ability of early
intervention programmes resulting in proper steps being taken towards youth justice system. The
theories of crime prevention require early intervention programmes to be adopted (Mason and
Poor, 2008). And in line with this, by adopting such programs for the targeted youth, who are at
a risk of taking the path of crime, such incidents can be curbed, and this would result in overall
improvement as social exclusion can be removed. The criminal justice system of UK, in addition
to the youth justice system, already takes steps towards rehabilitating and improving the lives of
the criminals and works in educating the criminals to put them on the right path. By indulging in
such early intervention programmes for the youth hit by social exclusion, particularly the ones
who are at risk, a step can be taken towards reducing the incidents of crime, if not eradicating
them completely (Crawford and Evans, 2017).
Even though there are a number of supporting points in tackling of social exclusion resulting in
prevention of crime, the same seems to be unrealistic as a whole. This is because crime is not just
caused due to the economic condition of a person, but also relates to factors like psychological
condition of the person, low self esteem, drug abuse, alcoholic nature, parental neglect,
frustration, and other factors (Herek, Gillis and Cogan, 1999). So, crime is not a result of a single
factor but is full of complex reasons, which at time is also linked to the genes of the person
(Dawkins, 2016). There are cases where the affluent members of society indulge in criminal
activities as a result of greed and anger. And then there are issues of hate crimes, which are
motivated due to different reasons like disability, sex, race or culture of a person. A victim of

ESSAY 6
unfair ruling, a person from a specific region, along with factors like politics, overpopulation and
bad influence can also force a person to indulge in criminal activities. Hence, merely putting the
focus on individuals who are faced with tough times would not result in prevention of crime.
Instead, it could also result in hatred towards the police and law enforcement officers due to the
individuals faced with social exclusion being targeted. Another substantial part in this regard is
the white collar crimes, which are committed by the privileged members of the society. Thus,
tackling social exclusion in such cases would not prove to be of help or give any respite
(Gottschalk and Tcherni-Buzzeo, 2017).
Even though these points show the truth, but at the same time, it cannot be denied that an
effective policy to deal with social exclusion can really result in crime level reducing, though
these would not be eradicated as such. Even if there is a chance of reducing 5% crimes, there is a
need to take such chance and tackling social exclusion can definitely result in a higher reduction
in criminal activities than just five percent. Crime is a social phenomenon as a result of its causes
and effects and the penal policy have to be seen in context of social and economic
marginalisation and exclusion. Apart from taking steps at preventing the vulnerable young
people which embark upon criminality at first instance, there is a need to take steps post
imprisonment, where proper measures are adopted for reintegrating the previous prisoners back
into the society, which relates to the help with training or work and housing (Salem and Lewis,
2016).
In order to reduce social exclusion, there is a need to provide effective interventions in the
personal areas which include health, family, society and education. Education intervention helps
in reducing the truancy level for enabling the people to attain requisite qualifications, which
reduces the likelihood of the individuals becoming socially excluded. Though, this has been put

ESSAY 7
in question with the rise in truancy levels since 2001. The Youth Inclusion and Support
Programmes and Youth Inclusion Programmes had been designed to include the mainly harshly
underprivileged youth individuals from the local environment. Yet, there have been issues in the
programme’s voluntary nature and the contribution of these two programmes in the cycle of
deprivation. The parenting initiatives which had been implemented and enforced provided new
skills to the parents who were struggling in coping with the children. Though, these have been
mostly concentrated on punishing, instead of being focused on rehabilitation. Lastly, the health
initiatives had been introduced for having a positive impact over the vulnerable nature of the
youth who have been socially excluded. Though, the preventative health interventions are also
not very successful due to the utilization of them being the responsibility of the youth and also in
using the services which have been offered. And so, the measures taken in this regard fail to
reduce the social exclusion from the society (Wilkinson, 2011).
To show that social exclusion can result in bringing down the crime levels, an example of social
inclusion in South Africa has to be taken, which has resulted in preventing violence in the nation.
Researchers have taken steps towards learning from the public sector employment program in
South Africa, which has resulted in prevention of crime and violence in the urban areas by
simply working towards fostering of social inclusion. The Centre for the Study of Violence and
Reconciliation conducted an investigation on the Community Work Programme which was a
poverty reduction plan which provides two days work in each week to such individuals of the
nation who are unemployed or underemployed. This programme resulted in reduction in poverty
and more importantly, on contributions towards an improved sense of community in the
participants which has led to the prevention of incidents of violence and criminal activities
(IDRC, 2017).

ESSAY 8
Thus, on the basis of the analysis conducted in the preceding segments of this discussion, it was
highlighted that social exclusion is a menace which results in social deprivation of an individual,
and more importantly, gives rise to such circumstances which force the individuals towards
criminal activities. Where steps are taken to tackle social exclusion, it can result in prevention of
crime. However, it would not result in eradication of social exclusion from the society. This is
because there are different factors which result in criminal activities, which are not always based
on the issues surrounding social exclusion. So, a well educated, well placed hacker may indulge
in hacking of FBI database and selling it in the black market. This is not a crime resulted from
social exclusion and thus would persist even when the policies adopted for eradicating social
exclusion prove successful. However, studies have proved that by indulging in activities related
to social inclusion, for instance, the example of South Africa, the crime rates can be brought
down. In short, even though social exclusion is not something which would wipe out every
instance of crime, but by inculcating the feeling of belongingness in the criminals, prevention of
social exclusion can result in crime being tackled. The same has not been successful as of yet due
to the different factors like the non-utilization of health facilities by the socially excluded youth,
but this does not mean that the same cannot be achieved in the future.

ESSAY 9
References
Audit Commission. (1998) Misspent Youth '98': The Challenge for Youth Justice. Abingdon:
Audit Commission Publications.
BRIS. (2001) Preventing Social Exclusion. [Online] BRIS. Available from:
http://www.bris.ac.uk/poverty/downloads/keyofficialdocuments/Preventing%20Social
%20Exclusion.pdf [Accessed on: 16/11/17]
Bullen, E., Kenway, J., and Hay, V. (2000) New Labour, Social Exclusion and Education Risk
Management: the case of 'gymslip mums'. British Educational Research Journal, 26(4), 441-456.
Crawford, A., and Evans, K. (2017) Crime prevention and community safety (pp. 797-824).
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dawkins, R. (2016). The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford university press.
Gottschalk, P., and Tcherni-Buzzeo, M. (2017) Reasons for Gaps in Crime Reporting: The Case
of White-Collar Criminals Investigated by Private Fraud Examiners in Norway. Deviant
Behavior, 38(3), 267-281.
Hale, C. (2013) 14 Economic marginalization, social exclusion, and crime. Criminology, 289.
Herek, G. M., Gillis, J. R., and Cogan, J. C. (1999) Psychological sequelae of hate-crime
victimization among lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults. Journal of consulting and clinical
psychology, 67, 945-951.

ESSAY 10
Hickey, S., and Du Toit, A. (2013) Adverse incorporation, social exclusion, and chronic poverty.
In Chronic Poverty (pp. 134-159). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
IDRC. (2017) How social inclusion is preventing violence and crime in South Africa. [Online]
IDRC. Available from: https://www.idrc.ca/en/article/how-social-inclusion-preventing-violence-
and-crime-south-africa [Accessed on: 16/11/17]
Littlewood, P., Glorieux, I., and Jönsson, I. (2017) Social exclusion in Europe: problems and
paradigms. London: Taylor & Francis.
MacDonald, R. (2015) Youth transitions, criminal careers and social exclusion. London: Sage.
Mason, P., and Poor, D. (2008) The Children's Fund and the prevention of crime and anti-social
behaviour. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 8(3), 279-296.
McLaughlin, E., Muncie, J., and Hughes, G. (2001) New Labour, new public management and
the modernization of criminal justice’. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 1, 301-318.
Musterd, S., and Ostendorf, W. (Eds.). (2013) Urban segregation and the welfare state:
Inequality and exclusion in western cities. Oxon: Routledge.
Salem, G. W., and Lewis, D. A. (2016) Fear of crime: Incivility and the production of a social
problem. London: Transaction Publishers.
Sparkes, J. (1999) Schools, Education and Social Exclusion. Paper 29. London: CASE
Wilkinson, P. (2011) Youth Offending Teams: Preventing Crime And Social Exclusion. [Online]
IDRC. Available from: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?
q=cache:9Z3EiIICr_YJ:www.cjp.org.uk/EasysiteWeb/getresource.axd%3FAssetID

ESSAY 11
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