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 for a country to be a good place to live it would need to have 3 categories: good healthcare, a stable/reliable police force and a fairly good education. I think that the UK meets each of these categories to a certain extent due to the factors that would impact it.

The UK has great healthcare because due to the NHS. The NHS provides universal healthcare which would ensure that residents wouldn’t have to worry about the financial burden of medical treatment. This makes the UK a good place to live because it means that people are comforted by the fact that they are protected by NHS in regards to health. For instance, the healthcare system within America doesn’t provide free service to the citizens and is mostly used by those that have the insurance to pay for it. This would result in many people being unable to get the health service they need due to not having the money to pay for it, thus making America not a good place to live in. Therefore, in regards to healthcare the UK could be regarded as a good place to live.

The UK’s police force has been criticised for their inability to maintain justice within the past. This is because of moments of injustice that have existed in the police for quite some time. An example of this would be the Stephen Lawerence murder case where police have been accused of racism in the handling of the case. Furthermore, the CPS was criticised for not allowing the prosecution of certain cases and the handling of witnesses that have led to miscarriages of justice. An example of this would be the case of Damilola Taylor where the witness was proven to be lying which the CPS failed to check before the trial. This would suggest that the UK isn’t a good place to live as there are examples of police incompetence that causes failures in justice. However, in comparison to other countries the police in the UK can be seen to be useful in prevention of crime. For instance, the crime rate in America is 363.8 incidents per 100,000 people whereas in the UK the crime rate is 72 crimes per 1000 people. This would suggest that whilst the police may not be as effective in solving and preventing most crime, the crime is lower than other countries, suggesting that the UK would be a good place to live.

The UK’s education system is also a testament to whether it is a good place to live in. The UK is known for some of the world’s leading universities such as Oxford that cause young adults to thrive as well as mandatory primary/secondary education that gives most children access to schooling regardless of background. However, there is apparent inequalities that causes some pupils to underperform such as school preference to elaborated speech codes. The emphasis on education still makes me think of the UK as a good place to live in.