Term Paper on "Britain Today"

Term Paper 13 pages (4091 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

UK Decline

How many times a day do individual peoples living in the UK hear that the country is a super power with a strong and growing economy? If you are like most people more times than you care to, especially given the inflated cost of living, inflated home prices, increased fear of personal security, increased crime and a general feeling of social unrest. One can't help feeling and seeing the signs of a underlying degradation that seems insidious, a growing national and personal debt level and a decreasing GNP. Why then does it seem the economy looks strong to the number crunchers and why does it feel like the UK is loosing something, especially for the everyday person?

This work will address social, industrial/infrastructural and economic issues that give evidence of growing concern among those who live here about the real state of the strength of the nation. In this tertiary analysis will be countless clues as to the real state of affairs that give at least some credence to the individual, bound by gross personal debt and afraid for the future. It will ask, why the numbers players continue to call the UK one of the strongest nations in the world, and whether a general decline in all nations, comparatively has given the UK a shining star for strength only because so many other nations are sinking economically, socially and industrially. The UK no longer makes, builds or sells anything instead we buy, buy, buy. (Industrial production growth rate: -3.4% (2002 est.) CNN WFB 2003) What do we do to pay for all these purchases? We support the world economy and our own country through a substantial increase in service industry work. (GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 1.4% industry: 24.9% services: 73.7% (2000), Labor force - by occupation: agriculture 1%, industry 25%, services 74% (1999) CNN WFB 2003) Is Britain living so far beyond its resources that the national and personal debt will soon turn the economy and the society upside down and into a freefall that even the statisticians cannot spin her out of?

Social Decline

As detailed in the preliminary work of this project there are many social and cultural issues that are in need of attention. To prove a point about a reflective economy and just how much the strength of the numbers play out in the real lives of its people the UK's situation will be analyzed from a social perspective, on several main points.

Massive problems of crime, drugs, violence etc.

Poor general education Standards

Many Professional middle-class people leaving the country

Inflated house prices

Poor social statistics a burden on the economy - teenage pregnancies, binge drinking, increases in smoking, obesity, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases, especially among the young

One need not look far to see that the crime statistics in the UK are reflective of decay, despite the attempt by many to blame such an increase on population growth and the urbanization of society.

Brennan-Galvin)

Data on urban crime and violence are highly problematic, for developed as well as for developing countries. Comprehensive victimization data are available over time for only a handful of countries, including Canada, the United States, the Netherlands, Finland and the United Kingdom.

Brennan-Galvin)

Yet, despite the fact that the UK has set historical precedence in the area of crime statistics, the comparative data is still relied upon as an indicator of the nations health. It can be proven without a doubt that international comparisons are mute in a situation where statistics are not congruent, yet they are, another example of the ways in which statistics can cover any problem with a translucent bandage. Critics of the new crime programme find fault in its ability to spin statistics to make the crime rates look as if they are going down when they are clearly not.

Reiner 71)

The problem with the approach, however, lies in its place within the overall strategy of new Labour, many other aspects of which threaten the possible success of the crime reduction programme. Most obviously, the commitment to keep within Conservative spending plans undermines the capacity of the police, probation, education and other social services to perform as intended, whilst exacerbating the pressures leading young people into crime, such as school exclusions and truancy (Downes 199 8:196-7).

Reiner 71)

Additionally the approach even though it has its strengths does not bode well under current economic restrictions.

Reiner 71) Current waves of economic reform do nothing to answer for the reduction in social services and situation, which have been historically responsible for crime prevention.

More generally the criminogenic consequences of failure to bring unemployment down by the New Deal and through macro-economic policy would vastly outweigh any crime-reducing effects of the Home Office programme. New Labour's commitment to old Tory economic policy is its new hostage to fortune in the crime control policy area.

(Reiner 71)

Another fallacy given us by the academics and statisticians is that the reason crime rates have gone up on paper is because people are more willing, than ever before to report crimes and yet this is little comfort for the aged woman who has seen a dramatic increase in the crime on her formerly safe and pleasant street.

A unlike other international social statistics with accepted definitions, crime statistics lack standardization and are notoriously unreliable...Despite differences in how countries define crime, the preferred basis for national crime -rate surveys is, by far, "crimes known or reported to the police." However, the willingness of the public to report crimes and to become involved in the justice system varies widely among countries.

(Brennan-Galvin)

Criminal statistics are known to be used as political fodder, and really nothing else. Has the use of such information incensed the population to believe that crime is worse than ever before? Or has the increased reporting falsely padded statistics? Once again both options seem to be a smoke screen for change.

A in popular discourse, criminal statistics are most policy debates, crime is identified with only a narrow range of all offences against criminal law (let alone any wider sense of harmful or unethical behaviour), predatory offending by individuals against the property or person of others. Policy debates and public anxieties primarily concern street crime not suite crime, although critical criminologists have rightly emphasised that the harm done by the latter in many respects exceeds the former (Nelken 1997; Slapper and Tombs 1999).

(Reiner 71)

This also says nothing of the increased number of crimes committed by large international financial players. In the wake of the United States energy scandal, you would think that Britain and other developed nations would be getting tough on white color crime, the crime that so seriously saps the consumer, yet it seems to be a mute point as those with power, money and influence have the ultimate control over their ability to hide wrong doings and continue to profit off the overextended British public.

According to the 2003 CIA World Fact book the UK is the: "gateway country for Latin American cocaine entering the European market; major consumer of synthetic drugs, producer of limited amounts of synthetic drugs and synthetic precursor chemicals; major consumer of Southwest Asian heroin; money-laundering center." We are the middle men in a drug trade that grows substantially every year and within the role our residents, and especially the young are becoming increasingly involved in the drug trade, its use and production as well as all the social issues that are reflective of it, violence, property crime and social degeneration, including but not limited to educational failures, and the domino effect of the intense long-term outcome these issues have of the future lives of this generation, non-employability, poverty and life long drug and personal recovery.

It is just now that we are also being told that the drug trafficking that takes place all over the world, with the UK as the hub for the continent often supports and subsidizes the terrorists who endanger our population with false religious zellotism and increased fear of random violence and the graphically horrible deaths of explosions and hijackings. The World Fact Book sites this as one of the only international problems that the UK has, yet is it really an international problem if it is killing our children and robbing our residents of property life and even dignity? It is a wonder that there is a mass middle class exodus occurring in the UK at this time. These people are seeking a life that is better lived, where they do not have to incur two lifetime's worth of debt to purchase a home and they can possibly expect to sent heir kids to a drug free school. All of the above factors influence the general decline in social welfare.

When people are unemployed and underemployed (working for non-livable wages) the social fiber of the culture, more people both in and outside the majority are marginalized and hopeless, causing themselves and their children to make poor social decisions, such… READ MORE

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