Analysis of the UK’s Crime-Fighting Mechanisms and Their Effectiveness

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Task 2 Essay
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
Reference list..............................................................................................................................8
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Introduction
The UK has a rich crime-fighting history and different public service organisations are
responsible to build a better society. Different public service organisations such as The
Police, The Law officers, HM Courts and Tribunal Services, The Ministry Justice, Her
Majesty’s Prison and Probations service, The Home Office and her Majesty’s Crown
Prosecution Service Inspectorate are key public bodies that are keeping the UK’s society safe
(Sullivan and Skelcher, 2017). In this essay, a brief idea of how UK’s crime departments
work will be defined with proper examples of each section.
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Discussion
In the context of the UK, it is seen that the UK has 43 police forces across the country. They
have different responsibilities such as criminal investigations, evidence collections, and
arresting suspected criminals in different contexts. According to the legal process of Police
forces of the UK, a series of processes are present through which proper justice can be
introduced to people. On the other hand, in minor cases, police often take certain steps to
caution them and collects fixed penalties of such crimes. In the UK, mainly two kinds of
courts are seen which are The Crown Court and Magistrate’s Courts. The Magistrate
Court generally deals with criminal offences that have lesser crime involved. On the other
hand, a special court named as Youth Court is also held in order to judge underage persons in
different contexts. The Crown Court generally deals with many serious offences and
generally, Jury and Judges introduce decisions (Bures and Carrapico, 2018).
There are different law officers in the legal system of the UK and the Attorney General holds
one of the pinnacle positions as the advisor of the government. Attorney generals perform
their duties in Serious Fraud Office and Crown Prosecution Services. The responsibility of
the Legal Department of the UK government is one the Attorney general through which the
personalities certainly fulfil different public interests of different individuals. The Ministry
of Justice has different responsibilities in different parts of justice systems of England. 32
public bodies and agencies support the ministerial department of MOJ (Hadjimatheou et al.,
2017). Her Majesty’s Prison and Probations Service is one of the most important public
bodies where sentences, which are given by different courts, are carried out by the service.
Her Majesty's Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) mainly inspects
different works carried out by different prosecution agencies and CPS. The main motive of
this service is to improve the quality of the justice system of the UK.
One of the most important and base level crime fighting agencies of UK is its police force. It
is mentioned that the UK has 43 police forces that have a huge role in criminal activities.
Along with such traditional police forces, County Police Forces are also in the legal aspects
of the UK through which constabulary services are being introduced. It is mentioned in a
recent report that there are 12 territorial police forces in different regions of the UK. Along
with normal Police forces, there are government bodies with police power that operates in
different other countries along with the UK. This agency also operates collaboratively with
police forces in order to fight crimes in the context of the UK. This enforcement was
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introduced through the Crime and Security Act 2001. On the other hand, agencies such as
the National Crime Agency (NCA) is one of the most important agencies through which
difficult criminal activities such as organised crimes can be fought by combat specialists
(Bradford and Myhill, 2015). It is mentioned in the policies of NCA that NCA has a two-way
policy through which they can work with police and law enforcement of the UK, which is
seen in different situations in organised crime situations.
There are several government bodies across UK that has certain limitations regarding their
executive powers. Agencies such as Vehicle and Driver Standards agencies and Independent
Police Complaints Commission who often introduces joined ventures to fight crime in
different situations. On the other hand, the Ministry of Justice is one of the public bodies that
introduce certain supports to different crime-fighting agencies.
Office for National Statistics (ONS) is responsible to introduce different statistics that is
introduced by Home offices. Different crime surveys are main sources of Data that introduces
such statistics to England and Wales (CSW) and Home Office Police through in order to help
them in different crime-fighting contexts. Data tables are generally published quarterly and
properly revised in each publication (ons.gov.uk, 2019).
It is mentioned in the review of national Statistician that Ministry of justice and Home office
introduce justice are the producers of such criminal statistics that have huge impacts in
different aspects of Legal systems of the UK. These statistics are being used in different
general aspects such as reviewing different gaps in different legal aspects; discontinuity and
discrepancy in different legal aspects are mitigated through these statistics. Main functions of
NCA and Police Force crime figures are introduced in order to find out whether crimes are
notifiable or non-notifiable in order to improve the transparency of public services in the
legal aspects of the UK. On the other hand, through these statistics and criminal records, are
essentially important through which contemporary definitions of different anti-social
activities and crimes by which proper judgement can be introduced in the legal system of the
UK. On the other hand, this brings proper clarity among people by which certain harms in
communities can be mitigated properly.
These crime reports are essentially important in order to introduce different noticeable
offences to people through which vulnerability in the society can be mitigated by improving
the transparency regarding the crime-fighting process in the context of the UK. These
statistics help to reduce bureaucratic burdens on different aspects regarding police activities.
ONS reports have shown certain aspects of Domestic abuse cases and these statistics have
huge importance regarding different criminal justice systems. It is mentioned in the report of
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CSEW that 4.2% men and 7.9% of women became the victim of domestic abuse in the recent
years that shows that the position of the country has not changed in past few years.
On the other hand, the statistic also subcategories different aspects of domestic abuses as it
show that a number of female victims are essentially high in the contemporary context of UK
society. This not only helps to point out the characteristics of each criminal activities in order
to understand and prevent them properly but it also helps in judgement processes in the courts
regarding such cases.
The youth justice system is also one of the most important and adequate in legal processes of
UK as legal processes of the UK properly solve most of the cases and legal statistics play a
huge role in such processes. It is mentioned in the recent reports of ONS that crime rate of
young people, children have fallen by 82%, and these statistics show that norms and legal
views to fight youth-related crimes are on the right tracks by which youth crimes can be
totally mitigated in few coming years.
On the other hand, it is seen in ONS report that in recent years, sexually related crimes have
been increased in recent years. A case releases not only effectively provide adequate data
regarding crimes but also properly introduces transparency regarding the crime-fighting
processes. These statistics are often used as reference materials in different case studies that
show the importance of such statistics in the contemporary context of the society of the UK
(ons.gov.uk, 2019).
In the contemporary context of criminal judgement, it is seen that court procedures are hugely
depending on criminal statistics and in cases such as the People v. O.J. Simpson, judges are
not reluctant to use such statistics to shed lights on any issues. Along with these statistics,
certain references are also can be seen through which issues in new cases can be mitigated
through proper.
In a recent report, it was mentioned that changing nature in the criminal activities are
instigating certain changes to police processes and that is introducing prioritising of crimes
(telegraph.co.uk, 2019). The report shows that in last few years, sexual abuse related crimes
have been increased hugely by which police have to prioritise such crimes along with
growing domestic violence cases. According to the police reports, these types of issues used
to have very lesser importance in earlier days but these cases are now top of the chart.
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Conclusion
Through the progress of the essay, it can be evaluated that UK’s crime fighting processes
have different strategies through which a better society can be acquired by the legal
authorities. Most of the time, public bodies act as individuals but considering the demand of
different situations, these public establishments have worked together in order to build up a
cleaner society. On the other hand, crime statistics also play huge roles in contemporary
crime fighting processes. Through these aspects, it can be properly said that the criminal
justice system of UK is hugely diverse and this happened because of the demand of different
issues in recent years.
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Reference list
Bradford, B. and Myhill, A., 2015. Triggers of change to public confidence in the police and
criminal justice system: Findings from the Crime Survey for England and Wales panel
experiment. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 15(1), pp.23-43.
Bures, O. and Carrapico, H., 2018. Private security beyond private military and security
companies: exploring Diversity within private–public Collaborations and Its consequences
for security governance. In Security Privatization (pp. 1-19). Springer, Cham.
Hadjimatheou, K., Coaffee, J. and De Vries, A., 2019. Enhancing Public Security Through
the Use of Social Media. European Law Enforcement Research Bulletin, 18, pp.1-14.
ons.gov.uk (2019) Crime and Justice Available At:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice [Accessed 10th
April 2019]
ons.gov.uk (2019) Domestic Abuse
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/
domesticabusefindingsfromthecrimesurveyforenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2018
[Accessed 10th April 2019]
ons.gov.uk (2019) Sexual Assault Statistics Available At
https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/
sexualassaultstatistics [Accessed 10th April 2019]
Sullivan, H. and Skelcher, C., 2017. Working across boundaries: collaboration in public
services. Macmillan International Higher Education.
telegraph.co.uk (2019) Police forces have to prioterise crimes Available At:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2017/03/02/police-forces-have-prioritise-crime/
[Accessed 10th April 2019]
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