Book Reviews : BARBARA A. HUDSON, Penal Policy and Social Justice. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993, x + 222 pp
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399500400214 |
| Author | Ian Loader |
| Date | 01 June 1995 |
| Published date | 01 June 1995 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
287
workload records; interviews with welfare officers and their managers (but unfortunately
not their clients or their legal representatives although a few judges were interviewed);
augmented by some observations of meetings between welfare officers and divorcing
parents. Given the wealth of material obtained it is surprising that comparatively little
direct use is made of it. Rather, the authors have distilled the findings and woven them into
a broader, largely social work policy and practice context. While this may be appropriate
for social work students and probation officers, and is only to be expected from authors
who are social work teachers, it produces a rather skewed picture for anyone seeking to
understand the place of court welfare in the context of the family justice system.
The overall picture which emerges is one of an often confused and inadequately trained,
even demoralized, bunch of probation officers, grappling with the emotional demands of
helping families riven by divorce and child dispute, but feeling marginal in their present
service, insufficiently supported by their senior managers, and unclear whether their
mandate derives from their social work profession, from their employing agency or from
the court. They are beset by a host of other problems and dilemmas such as whether to
mediate during the course of the welfare enquiry, whether to bring pressure on parents to
settle their dispute, and how far to focus on the children rather than the parents. While
some obviously relish the power to influence the courts’ decisions, others seem worried
and uncertain about it, mindful that their experience and training as probation officers has
not properly equipped them to appraise child custody issues. The research shows that
there is wide variation in practice in respect to these matters. The authors believe that
while many of these dilemmas spring from the nature of the work itself, they have been
aggravated at central government level by ’benign neglect, containment and negative
resourcing’, by the uncertainty about the place of court welfare work, by its loose
organizational structure, by the officers’ generally sceptical attitude to their management,
and by their sometimes close working relationships with the local judiciary who evidently
often support what are described as ’divergent practices’. The authors seek to set these
issues both in their historical policy context and within a framework of social theory
which draws heavily on the ideas of Goffman. Most of the book is clearly written,
although in places the issues receive rather elaborate treatment and some passages are
marred by social science jargon. Overall it exposes a set of problems without offering any
clear solutions. In this, I suspect the authors have become trapped by the uncertainties
which beset their subjects. The lack of any recent research feedback from divorcing
parents and their children makes it hard to judge whether the authors consider that a
public service so split and demoralized is doing a useful job at all.
MERVYN MURCH
Cardiff Law School, University of Wales, UK
BARBARA A. HUDSON, Penal Policy and Social Justice. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993, x +...
To continue reading
Request your trial