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sociology question

explain one way in which sociologicalresearch might help governments to design policies to reduce the amount ofcrime in Britain. (4 marks)

Reply 1

colinjames

That's pretty easy to be honest - let me break it down for you. The key word here is 'might' - it might help, in fact it usually does, but that's a debate for another time. Sociological research or in fact any kind of institutional research is beneficial to the government because it is this kind of empirical scientific research (empirical - another good word to use) research that allows, depending on the methods used and the scope it contains, the government to assimilate and understand from a macrosociological point of view the various different variables if you like that may influence a person to commit a crime. Through scientific research the government can look for various correlations that exist between the individual and their behaviours and the wider society that they live in and how that can influence them. For example if an individual lives in a socio-economically deprived area where there are no jobs, no access to employment and lack of leisure or cultural pursuits they are statistically far more likely to commit more crimes than someone who comes from an area where jobs are in abundance, cultural and leisure pursuits are more widely available and there is strong economic growth.

It is this type of research, commissioned by various governmental institutions, that directly affects the fiscal policies of the goverment and its handling of the crime. By understand how and why the crime takes place the government can alter its policies and tackle the problem according to the results of the research. For example, if it was discovered that over the course of 20 years that there was a strong correlation between violent crime and high unemployment in a borough of London, the government would then take it upon itself to invest more government funding into these areas to try and boost the economy in an effort to reduce crime. Hope this helps.