As part of preparing for University, new students were encouraged to engage in a number of different activities. For CRI1009 Imagining Crime, students were invited to contribute a blog on the above topic. These blog entries mark the first piece of degree level writing that students engaged with as they started reading for their BA (Hons) Criminology. With the students’ agreement these thought provoking blogs have been brought together in a series which we will release over the next few weeks.

What are some requirements to a good society? A good society makes us, as a community, feel secure. This is so incredibly important in making a society be considered good as it lowers the rates of criminality, thus improving the appearance of the area and reassurance of being a safe place. This will lead to a better world, given that it will promote positive behaviour, similar to the idea of positive reinforcement, if people were to act accordingly, they would be rewarded with a positive environment. Another requirement is the higher employment rates, the more success will be found within a society. Meaning, there will be less cases of homelessness, and considerably more wealth compared to if there were lower employment rates within a place. Higher employment rates also link into my next point of a fair education. A fair education is arguably one of the most important requirements of a good society, as it firstly links into high employment rates, if someone were to be in a position of having a better education, their IQ is likely to be higher which in most chances will lead to a very succeeding job. A fair education is very important as it allows everyone involved a fair chance and involves no bias, if this were the case it would lead to a bad society as the community are not promoting wealth for everyone involved, only for those they favour. Another requirement that makes up a good society is human rights. Similar to a fair education, human rights provide a chance for people and includes no favouritism. Human rights provide freedom which impact factors such as food and healthcare. These thrive to better societies given that people are not held back and can be free to do however they please in positive and safe ways.  A final requirement I would suggest that makes a good society are basic human needs. It is crucial that humans are provided with our biological needs such as water, food, housing/shelter etc. This is due to the fact that we simply cannot live without it.

However, I do believe that we live in a bad society, for many reasons, including the reasons previously mentioned. To begin, there has been a lack of safety net from the police to the public, which leads to repeated cases of rape, police brutality etc. While it can be argued the police are trying to keep the public safe, they are simply causing more harm than good, and considering the police are meant to be role models to the public, the public have increased the rate of criminality with riots and protests against the police, not making our society a safe place. Our society has become let down in regard to basic human needs, although employments rates are high at 74.8% for those ages 16-64, in 2019 the homelessness statistic in the UK is significantly high at 219,000. Meaning the need for food, shelter and water has become at a higher demand.

It has been very clear in recent years that we do not live in a good society, due to the reasons of security within the police, employment rates, a fair education,  human rights and basic human needs, all of which could easily make up a good society if it were taken seriously by the appropriate people.

As part of preparing for University, new students were encouraged to engage in a number of different activities. For CRI1009 Imagining Crime, students were invited to contribute a blog on the above topic. These blog entries mark the first piece of degree level writing that students engaged with as they started reading for their BA (Hons) Criminology. With the students’ agreement these thought provoking blogs have been brought together in a series which we will release over the next few weeks.

I believe that the society we live in is good but has areas that need to be improved. One of the requirements that I think will make a good society is sympathy. I believe that if more people show sympathy towards the homeless, then it can help lower the homeless population and, therefore, lower the percentage of unemployment. This can also reduce the strain on charities, which in turn allows them to focus more help on the people who really need it.

Another requirement to make a good society is self-control. If the population practices self-control, then our society will start to have fewer incidents involving alcohol, such as drink driving and fewer aggressive assaults. One of the other outcomes of practising self-control is a decrease in the volume of visits to the NHS. This can be anything from A&E visits after a night out to health visits due to obesity, this decrease could majorly help the NHS and allow them to give more appointments to people with life-threatening conditions.

Another requirement to help make a good society is more successful and higher rehabilitation rates. If we as a society start to give more support to the members that have wronged then they will have a higher chance of being reformed, which will allow us to live in a society with a lower crime rate, therefore, giving us the opportunity to feel safer in our lives.  

One of the other areas of our society that needs improvement is education. If the level of education and extra educational support is improved in areas of higher deprivation then it will help young people to move away from crime and bad role models, they may be able to get higher paying jobs, which will allow them to take care of their families and improve the areas that they have come from. This can give them security in their lives, which again will help them to turn away from criminal acts. If the extra educational support is increased then the young people who need extra support can improve on their studies and gain more confidence in themselves, which will help them to gain better grades.

Another requirement of a good society is lower unemployment levels. If we start to improve support for the unemployed, such as classes to help them improve on existing skills and to learn new skills. This can start to lower the unemployment rates and relieve some of the pressure on the government and the county and district councils.

One of the other areas that we could improve in our society to make it better is extra curricular activities for young people to get involved with. If there are more weekend and after school activities and workshops for our younger people to get involved with then it can help to stop them committing crimes. These activities can also help them to learn new skills to take forward in their lives, it can also help those who maybe aren’t as academic as others.

As part of preparing for University, new students were encouraged to engage in a number of different activities. For CRI1009 Imagining Crime, students were invited to contribute a blog on the above topic. These blog entries mark the first piece of degree level writing that students engaged with as they started reading for their BA (Hons) Criminology. With the students’ agreement these thought provoking blogs have been brought together in a series which we will release over the next few weeks.

Our society is created up by a system that fails it from the beginning it is supposed to make our society better, but in fact creates conflict and frustration and this would be the justice system. The justice system is put in place to allow people to live in a world that has rules and control to create this good society, however, is overwhelmed by the amount of crime.

A good society in my eyes would be one where people took accountability for their wrong doings, because as humans its unrealistic to ask there to be no mistakes we all are living life for the first time and therefor are bound to get things wrong, but being able to take accountability for our actions would be the first step to being able to have a good society. I don’t think it’s possible to ever have no crime or this pitch perfect world, but I believe that there’s things that can be put into place to make society better. 

In my eyes change requires there to be understanding and accountability, we as people find it very easy to judge and come to assumptions instead of taking time to understand the issues at hand, and if we would just take a step back and try and see the bigger picture we may be able to come to a mutual ground of seeing why issues occur instead of simply judging. Helping us to understanding why things happen and reduce the resent that occurs is certain situations.

For a society to flourish and grow it needs to be nurtured in the right way this would include, having a fair justice system, things put into place to help guide those who have lost their way a bit and to provide a constant support system. I strongly think a society depends on the nurture around it and that widely impact the impact those are going to have on others.

An ideal good society would involve everyone coming together to support one and another being each other’s community instead of creating big segregations between races and cultures if we as human could learn to live and work together as one, we would solve a lot of issues across the world. War would not exist as our system would result in aiding everyone.

I still believe a good society needs a hierarchy system in terms of rules in place to ensure everyone’s safe as without a foundation of what’s right and wrong it allows people to think they can do as they please. Rules help put into perspective what’s not allowed as a collective thing that are unacceptable by knowledge and provide a punishment to fall upon if those rules are broken.

Overall, a good society needs to be built up of basic foundations of nature, understanding and accountability in my opinion to reduce the conflict that occurs in some cases. A good society needs to be open minded.

As part of preparing for University, new students were encouraged to engage in a number of different activities. For CRI1009 Imagining Crime, students were invited to contribute a blog on the above topic. These blog entries mark the first piece of degree level writing that students engaged with as they started reading for their BA (Hons) Criminology. With the students’ agreement these thought provoking blogs have been brought together in a series which we will release over the next few weeks.

A good society can be defined as one with social cohesion with a safe, secure environment and a bad society as one lacking these qualities, when using this definition, we can look at if society is good or bad.

In the media there has been an increase in crimes reported, including individuals being caught and charged for their actions, which would have previously escaped the public eye. With an increase in media use from youths, it puts them at a risk to exploitation due to their vulnerability as young people. Social influencers have been able to exploit their own children through sexualising their actions to attract paedophiles and earn profit from these views. In this situation, parents fail to protect their children from the harmful environment the media can attract. Thus, social media is growing in its dangerous nature making it unsafe.

There has been an increase in violence in all aspects of society, such as shootings and wars. America holds the highest rate of school shootings and has failed to make schools a safe place for children.  America suffers from violence due to the legalisation of guns which can be seen with many attempted assassinations of presidents, some of which have been successful. The latest attempt being Donald Trump in 2024, which shows how America has failed to provide people with security no matter their status in society.

Even outside of America there has been a failure to make society safe as seen in East Europe. The Russo Ukrainian war gained attention in 2022 over Russia’s failure to capture Ukraine. This caused anxiety as other countries could not fight due to being part of NATO, instead they provided aid for Ukraine. Despite this the war has continued, making Ukraine unsafe to live in, forcing many to immigrate. The Israel-Hamas war started in 2023 and as a result of this war, businesses who supported Israel were boycotted, which demonstrates the interests between businesses and the public not aligning, resulting in protests over powerful figures’ failure to speak up against the violence, thus there is a lack of social solidarity.

Human rights are not consistent within the world. This can be seen in Islamic countries making homosexuality forbidden, whereas in the West homosexuality can be acted upon in public without punishment. With women’s rights there has been recent debates about abortion and its legalisation within America. 17 states have banned abortion, which shows a lack of consensus between the states as the laws are not consistent throughout America. There has been widespread protests to bring back the right to an abortion to women. Additionally, in some countries women have fewer rights due the ideology of men as being superior. The exclusion to rights means women cannot work or get an education predominantly in the Middle East and Africa, whereas the West aim for equal opportunities, showing how politics between countries are not in agreement as to what is a human right.

Therefore, when looking at these events, there is a lack of social cohesion and safety between countries, and even within the same country there is little agreement, this results in a bad society.