Aiding and Abetting the Faults of the Structure?
| Date | 01 March 1989 |
| Published date | 01 March 1989 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058903600105 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Aiding and Abetting
the Faults of the
Structure?
Continuing the debate initiated by Bill Jordan and Martyn
Jones in the last Issue, Alberic Lloyd, Probation Officer, Not-
tingham, explores the difficulties in addressing wider problems
of structural injustice in SERs and the necessity to present
critical truths about clients’ poverty.
acceptance of the status quo. In our stu-
dent days we were all made aware that
the roots of criminal behaviour are
complex, but that the common denomi-
nator is often to be found in situations
of poverty. So, you might ask, what’s
new? For me it is a growing awareness
that many of the problems that cause
the poorer sections of our community
to offend and re-offend, are not only
personal, social and economic, but
structural in nature.
Us and
Them
and
the
Rhetoric
ofDomble
Standards
Who
believes that the poorer people in
our community need more help than
others in Britain today? Nearly every-
one, it seems, as the leaders of all three
main political parties have backed
these ideas during the past months. In
theory then, this is a commonly held
ince
truth, but in practice it is often another
I entered
matter. The trouble begins with the reg-
the Probation Service
ulations and the legislators themselves.
I have been troubled by an inescapable
Inevitably, they are self-interested, and
fact: the clientele of the Magistrates
like any club or association, they devise
Courts are mainly the poorer sections
rules that benefit the members at the
of our community; a reality that has al-
expense of the outsiders. The dilemma
ways been clearly reflected in our
for me
is that I am
fortunate enough to
workload. The fact that many of our
be ’a member’, but most of my work lies
clients are on State Benefits or in re-
with ’the outsiders’. Despite miles of
ceipt of low incomes, is one we are all
political rhetoric over the years, I still
familiar with. It is, however, a familiar-
see the
22
poor appearing before the
ity that tends to breed an unquestioning
Courts and filling our prisons in large
numbers, frequently for offences that
are poverty-related.
F~eing the Issue in Courts
Reports: Placing the Offender
in
their
Social
Context?
Lately, I...
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