Book Reviews : Reports to Courts
| Date | 01 June 1975 |
| Author | Mark Monger |
| Published date | 01 June 1975 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455057502200213 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
62
Reports
to
Courts
Leslie
Herbert
and
David
Mathieson
NAPO,
60p
plus
10p
postage
This
small
book
replaces
a
probation
paper
by
Mathieson
and
walker,
and
is
likely
to
be
the
standard
work
of
reference
for
beginners
for
some
time.
There
are
19
short
chapters,
a
feature
which
some
readers
will
ap-
prove,
but
others
will
feel
results
in
a
certain
wittiness.
First
for
some
detailed
comments.
Chapter
3
on
the
&dquo;Role
of
the
Pro-
bation
Officer
or
Social
’vvorker&dquo;
is
disappointing
as
it
sidesteps
the
issue
and
ends
up
with
no
conclusion.
This
is
the
more
surprising
as
in
Chapter
19
it
is
confirmed
that
indeed
the
worker
has
two
roles,
those
of
court
inquirer
and
caseworker,
and
that
these
can
coexist.
Chapter
6
deals
with
presentation
in
court;
it
was
pleasing
to
see
a
plea
for
the
worker
to
appear
whenever
possible.
Chap-
ter
8
on
&dquo;Crisis
Casework&dquo;
is
disap-
pointing,
in
that
it
fails
to
recognise
crisis
intervention
as
a
means
of
ex-
pediting
treatment;
the
six
weekly
cycle
of
Caplan
applies
only
in
some
cases,
and
in
more
others
it
is
only
the
start
of
the
work,
but
at
least
it
avoids
that
cooling
off
period
between
enquiry
and
court
appearance,
after
which
it
is
often
difficult
to
get
the
offender
and
family
&dquo;switched
on&dquo;
again.
Chapter
11
suggests
that
re-
search
evidence
shows
that
reports
are
used
extensively
by
sentencers.
This
is
a
bit
suspect;
some
of
the
material
is
to
the
effect
that
chicken-
and-eggery
exists,
that
is,
that
work-
ers
anticipate
that
a
court
will
do
something
such
as
sentence
to
im-
prisonment,
resignedly
suggest
this,
and
the
suggestion
is .then
&dquo;followed&dquo;.
Chapters
13
and
14
dealing
with
re-
ports
in
civil
cases,
are,
in
this
re-
viewer’s
view,
unsuccessful.
It
is
not
’
possible
to
compress
so
much
materi-
al
into
so
brief
a
span;
adoption
just
cannot
be
dealt
with
in
19
lines.
It
would
have
been
better
either
to
ex-
pand
the
whole
production,
or
limit
it
to
criminal
court
reports.
In
Chap-
ter
17,
on
&dquo;Recommendations
in
Re-
ports&dquo;
there
is
an
unfortunate
distinc-
tion
made
between
the
judiciary
and
the
&dquo;professionals&dquo;.
Some
of
us
may
accept
that
some
judges
on
some
roc-
casions
behave
in
amateurish
fashion,
but
the
fact
is
that
they
are
far
from
being
amateurs.
The
authors
are
how-
ever
to
be
congratulated
in
their
stand
in
favour
of
the
worker
ex-
pressing
opinion
rather
than
recom-
mendations ;
Streatfeild
got
this
one
right,
once
and
for
all,
one
would
have
hoped.
More
generally,
three
comments:
first,
for
whom
was
this
written?
There
is
a
large
social
services
audi-
ence
waiting
for
this
kind
of
book,
but
the
authors
suggest
a
certain
in-
sularity
by
referring
almost
through-
out
to
&dquo;officers&dquo;.
Second,
there
are
a
lot
of
stylistic
mishaps
which
can
be
cleared
up
in
subsequent
editions,
the
result,
one
suspects,
of
building
upon
an
earlier
work.
Thirdly,
the
authors
need
to
decide
whether
they
are
writing
a
detailed
textbook
or
not:
for
instance,
they
sometimes
go
into
enormous
(and
often
useful)
de-
tail,
which
suggests
they
write
for
the
beginner,
yet
in
discussing
psy-
chiatric
reports
do
not
distinguish
be-
tween
Section 4
and
Section
60
re-
ports,
information
essential
to
the
be-
ginner.
The
last
comment
is
probably
the
most
important,
and
that
is
that
the
book
is
in
some
ways
already
behind
the
times,
in
that
it
fails
to
take
into
account
the
recent
trend
in
social
work
training,
and
to
some
extent
practice,
away
from
focus
upon
the
individual
and
towards
family
inter-
action.
It
is
now
recognised
that
the
individual
is
more
profoundly
influ-
enced
by
inter
familial
pressures
than
had
formerly
been
appreciated,
and
that
it
may
be
the
whole
family
which
needs
attention.
(See
Jordan,
Bell,
Satir,
and
on
the
medical
side,
Laing,
Estersone
and
Skynner.)
Thus
it
is
no
concidence
that
a
section
on
The
Home
Visit
is
one
of
the
weakest
in
the
book;
this
is
also
reflected
when
the
authors
detail
their
headings
for
reports,
ignoring
the
familial
interac-
tion
except
by
implication.
This
part
urgently
needs
rewriting
in
further
editions.
All
this
having
been
said
it
must
also
be
said
that
an
enormous
am-
ount
of
conscientious
work
has
been
put
in
on
this
book,
and
it
contains
a
commensurate
amount
of
necessary
and,
for
the
beginner,
indispensable,
information
and
discussion.
The
re-
To continue reading
Request your trial