Book Review: Disputing Doctors: The Socio-legal Dynamics of Complaints about Medical Care
| Author | Jo Bridgeman |
| Published date | 01 September 2005 |
| Date | 01 September 2005 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/096466390501400310 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
which one might participate to locate one’s own stolen property) through which
people negotiate often quite chaotic lives on the other. In nodal governance none of
the individual nodes (including the state) necessarily have prominence at all times and
in all circumstances and so it is possible to see other agencies playing a more central
and defining role than the public police in the development of locally responsive
strategies. This is not necessarily to argue that the public police do not continue to
exert a strong influence (and much of the research into crime prevention and
community safety partnerships in the UK indicates that they do), but it does make
the case that to understand the governance of security, and to think creatively about
how it may work in the future, we need to look beyond the state. Although this does
succeed in broadening the discussion of security provision it is also the source of my
reservations about aspects of the practical utility of the book. A common concern with
local crime prevention initiatives, for example, is that they tend to flourish where they
are needed least. Those communities in which social exclusion is the norm, and the
lines between offending and victimization blurred, are precisely those communities in
which it is most difficult to ‘kick start’ initiatives such as those championed by
Johnston and Shearing. Both authors are clearly aware of this problem and have
suggested various means of alleviating it – from block grants to poor communities to
Peace Committees set up to provide local coordination of projects. But it is com-
munities that already have some organizational and collective capacity so described
that are most likely to be able to compete for such resources in the first place. I would
suggest that the potential role of the state in this respect tends to be underplayed
within the ‘nodal governance’ paradigm as articulated here. Although the state may
have its faults, it does remain an important means through which it might yet be
possible to ensure that resources are equitably distributed when the loudest, and most
organized, claims for them are not representative of the most objective need. If we
place our faith in the self-reliance and self-direction of communities themselves, it is
likely that the most excluded communities will actually become even further excluded.
Despite my misgivings about state-led projects I do not share the authors’ optimism.
This point of emphasis aside, this is an important and engaging book. It works
extremely well on a number of levels; as a history of criminal justice and corporate
sector security technologies, an analysis of changes in the institutional models of
thinking underpinning them, and an explicit project to reclaim risk-based strategies
as a means through which to empower poor and socially excluded communities. It
draws on a rich and powerful series of illustrations and examples ranging from the
Zwelethemba project noted earlier, to the North American deployment of risk assess-
ment technologies in the field of ‘community corrections’, and a particularly lively
account of the blurring of zero-tolerance, problem-orientated policing and crime and
disorder partnerships in New York and Middlesbrough. For scholars in the field, and
anyone interested in the political and moral choices that underpin and shape criminal
justice policies, it is essential reading.
ALISTAIR HENRY
School of Law, University of Edinburgh, UK
LINDA MULCAHY, Disputing Doctors: The Socio-legal Dynamics of Complaints about
Medical Care, Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2003, 173 pp., £18.39 (pbk).
This book provides a timely contribution to the scholarship on regulation of the
medical profession at a time when, once again, professional bodies and government
are grappling, as a consequence of apparent failures in the existing system, with the
BOOK REVIEWS 441
06 055692 Reviews (bc-s) 12/7/05 3:25 pm Page 441
To continue reading
Request your trial