Season’s Greetings
The Thoughts from the Criminology Team would like to wish all our readers and writers happy holidays. We’d also like to extend our thanks to everyone for your contributions, without you there would not be a blog and they are very much appreciated.
Wherever you are in the world and whether or not you celebrate Christmas, we extend our good wishes to you and wish you and yours a peaceful end to 2024. We’ll be back in 2025 with lots more criminological content, until then stay safe and well.
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An annual reflection and a glance to the year ahead!
As we complete the last day before the Christmas break, I encourage you to sit back and reflect on what you have achieved this academic term. Some of you will have started university for the first time and will be getting to grips with the processes, the assessments, the staff and the learning styles of the university. Some of you will be navigating second year and the new expectations of you at this level, learning to move beyond discussion to instead evaluation and being critical, honing your research skills in preparation for your dissertations in the next academic year. For some of you this may have been a hard journey and one that will progress into the second semester, but please know that this will build up your skills and your confidence, turning you into the academic you need to be in order to succeed.
For some of you, you will have moved into your third and final year. With this comes more independence, and some of this may feel uncertain, confusing, and a bit unknown. Please know that again this does not last and you will find your feet. Whether that is a lightbulb moment with your dissertation, or finally finding the right article that helps you to write your essay. For those of you that have exams coming up in January, make sure you can enjoy the festivities and take a well earned break. But when you find those moments where you’re bored and have nothing to do, and you start to think about your criminology course, I think that will be a good indication to pick up a book, to read through your notes, or to practice some exam questions.
On a personal note as I reflect on this year there are things I am definitely proud to have achieved, and things I would like to work on in the future. One of my biggest achievements this year was completing my PhD. It has been a long, difficult journey, spanning over eight years, but the feeling of successfully completing my viva, making those final changes, and the recognition I feel when discussing my research to various people reminds me of its importance. The special moment of my graduation. At my graduation my research title was read aloud, I was applauded, and then welcomed into the academic community onstage to be seated with fellow academics such as my supervisors. This was a special moment I will cherish and having family there was all the more memorable and precious. Whilst the PhD journey has come to an end, new opportunities arise, so keep an eye out in 2025 for further publications!
In addition, this year, I navigated my new job at the University of Northampton. In the 12 months I’ve been here I have learnt a lot from colleagues, from the faculty, and from other departments. Looking ahead, the road is one of change and adjustment, but I am optimistic and ready for whatever changes may come.
I wish everyone a wonderful and restful Christmas. Like myself, I hope you return in the New Year with renewed energy ready to tackle any new adventures with poise and determination. Remember to push yourselves to get to the best version of you!
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Will Santa Visit?
For me Christmas always acts as a stark reminder of inequity, both past and present. I tend to remember television and music, stories of inequity between the haves and the have nots at Christmas time being told by the privileged few. Such as the Muppets Christmas Carol’s (1992) depiction of Tiny Tim, as being poor and disabled but ever so grateful for what he had. Quite recently I was doing some food shopping when I heard the Band Aid (1984) song, Do they know it’s Christmas playing on the tannoy. Despite the criticism relating to white privileged saviorism apparently still this song is popular enough to have a revival in 2024.
Christmas things cost money. So the differences between Christmas experiences of the haves and the have nots are drastic. Whilst many children are very aware that it is Christmas they might also be very aware of the financial constraints that their parents and/or guardians may be in. On the flip side there are other children who will have presents galore and are able to enjoy the festivities that Christmas bring.
This is also a time where goods are advertised and sold that are not needed and not recommended by healthcare professionals. Such as the sale of children’s toys that are dangerous for young children. For example, I was considering purchasing Water Beads as a fun crafting gift option for some children this year, until I was made aware that a children’s hospital and local playgroup are warning parents of the dangers of these as if swallowed can drastically expand in the body which could cause serious health complications.
It seems that social media also adds to the idea that parents and/or guardians should be providing more to enhance the Christmas experience. With posts about creating North Pole breakfasts, Christmas Eve boxes, matching Christmas family Christmas pajamas and expensive Santa visits. All of which come at a financial cost.
As well as this some toys that seem to be trending this year might be seen to misappropriate working class culture. For example, if your parents can afford to take you to Selfridges you can get a ‘fish and chip’ experience when buying Jelly Cat soft toys in the forms of items traditionally purchased from a fish and chip shop (see image above). This experience plus a bundle of these fish chips and peas soft toys cost £130 according to the Jelly Cat website. The profits gained for the Jelly Cat owners are currently being quoted in the news as being £58 million. Whilst at the same time some customers of these real life fish and shops will find it difficult to afford to buy a bag of chips. And some real life fish and chip businesses seem to be at risk of closure, in part due to high cost of living climate which impacts on cost of produce and bills.
Given the above issues it is not surprising that some children are worried that Santa won’t visit them this year.
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What makes a good or bad society?: VII
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.
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What makes a good or bad society?: VI
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.
Thoughts from the criminology team 