WJEC Criminology Unit 3 AC1.1 full mark controlled assessment answer.
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Course
Crime Scene to Courtroom
Institution
WJEC
This is the write-up I used in my unit 3 controlled assessment for AC1.1. I got full marks overall.
This is an example and should not be copied out in your exam.
AC1.1
Police Officers
Job role and strengths
Police are often the first to be called to crime scenes. They have a very
important role at the beginning of investigations when they have a duty to
secure the crime scene to ensure evidence is conserved. Another responsibility
police have is to arrest suspected criminals and ensure the public are safe. This
makes them important as they are relied on by many to feel safe and secure.
They also must take the first statements from witnesses and victims. This
makes them crucial for investigations as they get people’s immediate thoughts,
which are most likely to be accurate as the events occurred recently. Some
training is required in order to be a police officer, but it is much less training
then for other job roles mentioned.
Limitations
Cost: There is a high cost for training as many police officers are needed across
the UK. Because officers don’t pay for their own training, as people for other
jobs pay for education, this has high costs to the UK. There is also a cost of
equipment for the police such as police cars, uniform, and shields. In the UK, it
is estimated that the cost of a police officer including salary, recruitment,
equipment and training is around £59,000.
When the police were looking into a man called David Archer and his
suspected brothels, they decided to thoroughly search multiple suspected
locations at once. This required lots of different departments working together
as well as sniffer dogs and riot officers. This will have been very costly. There
are high costs in order to do exhaustive investigations.
Availability: There are lots of crimes reported that can’t be investigated due to
shortages of police officers. There was a decline of 14% between 2020 and
2019 in the number of police officers meaning fewer available for
investigations. In Staffordshire police force there were 570 more officers in
2010 than in 2020, whilst between 2013 and 2018, there was a 21% increase in
reported crime and 123% increase in reported hate crime. There was also a
34% increase in domestic violence calls over the past 5 years. This shows more
police officers are needed in order for a speedy response to crime, as there are
more reported but fewer officers available to deal with them. Also, some
crimes take a lot of time to investigate. For instance, in 1996, the Chillenden
, murders occurred. Lin Russel and her two daughters were attacked on their
way home. Lin and one of her daughters were killed during the attack, whilst
her other daughter survived. Michael Stone is currently in prison for the
murders but there is disagreements on whether he actually committed these
crimes. There was a lot of time, in this case, spent on interviewing witnesses
yet it still took over a year for police to find a suspect. If cases take a long time,
then fewer other cases will be able to be looked into due to limited staff.
Therefore, some victims may never get justice as the police won’t have time to
look into the crime.
Expertise: Due to limited training, police officers may well not be trained or
inadequately informed about certain issues. For example, Stephen Lawrence
was murdered in 1993 in a racially motivated attack whilst waiting for his bus
with a friend. There was institutional racism during the investigation meaning
that it took far longer to get convictions than it should have. Even to this day,
only two of the killers have been convicted. As police set an example to others,
any discrimination they show may spread further within the population. It is
very dangerous when police are discriminatory as it can cost lives. It also may
lead to some cases not being prioritised when they should be and people not
getting justice, such as in the case mentioned above. If people feel the police
will discriminate against them, they will lose trust in the police and are less
likely to report crimes they see or are victims of. Police officers may also act
insensitively, causing unnecessary harm to victims or their families. For
example, Bibaa and Nicole were two sisters stabbed in a park in London. Two
of the police officers who went to the scene, PC Deniz Jaffer and PC Jamie
Lewis, took inappropriate pictures of the crime scene. Incidences such as this
may be caused by a lack of enough training. This sort of thing reduces people’s
confidence in the police.
Pathologists
Job role and strengths
Pathologists examine bodies and body tissues as well as studying diseases and
the cause of injuries. Their job requires a science or medical degree plus an
additional 7-8years training. This extensive training means that they are highly
qualified to do their job making them very useful in providing information in
investigations. Most pathologists are employed by the NHS but there are also
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