Book Reviews : The Challenge of Child Abuse Proceedings of a Conference sponsored by the Royal Society of Medicine, 2/4 June 1976. Edited by Alfred White Franklin. Academic Press, London 1977, £10.80. Child Abuse: Prediction, Prevention and Follow-up Papers presented by the Tunbridge Wells Study Group on Child Abuse at their Farnham meeting, October 1976. Edited by Alfred White Franklin. Churchill Livingstone, 1977, £8.00
| DOI | 10.1177/026455057802500211 |
| Published date | 01 June 1978 |
| Date | 01 June 1978 |
| Author | David Millard |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
70
the
Leicestershire
Service,
or
for
wider
circulation,
but
it
constitutes
fascinating
reading
for
anyone
con-
cerned
with
the
central
issues
of
con-
temporary
probation
practice.
The
core
of
the
study
is
an
analysis
of
recommendations
and
the
role
of
pro-
bation
officers
in
sentencing,
and
this
is
followed
by
a
descriptive
account
of
organisational
aspects
of
the
new
team.
The
chapter
on
recommenda-
tions,
following
earlier
studies
(not-
ably
Perry, 1974)
takes
our
know-
ledge
a
valuable
step
further;
Miss
Hardiker
postulates
a
&dquo;reversed
tariff
needs
model&dquo;,
which
sounds
incom-
prehensible,
but
in fact
enables
any
probation
officer
to
place
his
sentenc-
ing
recommendation
on
a
simple
chart
that
plots
the
needs
of
the
offender
against
the
seriousness
of
the
offence,
taken
in
conjunction
with
his
crim-
inal
record.
The
adoption
of
such
a
model
could
do
a
great
deal
towards
making
sentencing
recommendations
less
speculative
and
more
profes-
sional.
The
discussion
that
follows
debates
some
fundamental
issues,
including
the
offender’s
lottery
that
determines
whether
his
social
inquiry.
report
will
be
written
by
a
&dquo;punitive&dquo;
or
a
treat-
ment-oriented
officer,
and
the
national
decline
in
the
relative
use
of
the
pro-
bation
order
by
the
courts.
Develop-
ments
in
probation
are
usefully
com-
pared
with
those
in
social
services
departments.
Miss
Hardiker’s
study
is
professional,
competent,
thorough
and
clear,
and
augurs
well for
her
forth-
coming
study,
with
Kathleen
Cur-
nock,
of
practice
theory
and
social
inquiry
reports.
The
appearance
of
the
present report
has
already
resulted
in
a
useful
dialogue
between
Leicester
officers
and
members
of
a
similar
team
in
Southampton,
which
illus-
trates
the
value
of
such
studies
to
groups
working
in
isolation
from
each
other.
The
gamble
of
the
Leicester-
shire
Service,
in
permitting
a
research
study
of
a
major
organisational
change,
has
been
fully
vindicated
by
a
report
that
portrays
work
of
im-
pressive
professional
standards,
con-
firming
this
reviewer’s
suspicions
that
Perry’s depressing
findings
in
1974
were
an
inadequate
reflection
of
the
competence
of
the
Probation
Service.
PETER
FORD
The
Challenge
of
Child
Abuse
Proceedings
of
a
Conference
sponsored
by
the
Royal
Society
of
Medicine,
2/4
June
1976.
Edited
by
Alfred
White
Franklin.
Academic
Press,
London
1977,
£10.80.
Child
Abuse:
Prediction,
Prevention
and
Follow-up
Papers
presented
by
the
Tunbridge
Wells
Study
Group
on
Child
Abuse
at
their
Farnham
meeting,
October
1976.
Edited
by
Alfred
White
Franklin.
Churchill
Livingstone,
1977,
£8.00.
Much
of
it
is
depressingly
familiar.
They
are
likely
to
be
young
families
of
low
educational
and
social
status;
they
are
likely
to
live
in
the
poorest
areas
of
our
towns
and
cities;
their
own
histories
may
have
been
unsettled
and
their
current
life
styles
are
likely
to
be
unpredictable
to
say
the
least.
Moreover,
their
expectations
of
what
they
may
get
from
life
are
likely
to
be
severely
limited.
Judging
from
the
bibliographies
in
both
of
these
books,
there
is
now
a
vast
research
industry
concentrating
upon
child
abuse,
together
with
a
vast
bureaucracy
aimed
at
protecting
the
interests
of
children
and
the
career
anxieties
of
social
workers.
Yet
none
of
this
seems
to
have
enabled
us
to
do
much
more
than
confirm
these
observations
of
common
sense.
Hardly
surprising,
therefore,
that
in
a
paper
entitled
&dquo;The
present
posi-
tion
in
the
Probation
&
After-Care
Service&dquo;,
we
find
Bob
Spiers
admit-
ting
that
&dquo;whilst
accepting
the
need
for
safeguarding
procedures
such
as
registration
and,
in
high
risk
cases,
the
special
supervision
of
the
worker
by
a
senior
officer,
the
Probation
Ser-
vice
bridles
a
bit
at
the
establishment
of
such
procedures,
which,
for
all
their
rationality
in
supporting
good
practice
and
service
to
clients,
may
be
misinterpreted
by
some
as
more
con-
cerned
with
the
protection
of
agency
than
of
children
at
risk&dquo;.Not
that
Bob
Spiers
approves
of such
bridling.
He
thinks
such
a
response
indicates
that
you’re
living
in
an
ideal
world
in
which
the
most
important
factors
would
be
&dquo;professional
competence
and
integrity&dquo;.
Come
again.
I
thought
that’s
what
it
was
all
about.
But
no.
&dquo;In
the
world
as
it
is,
we
have
neces-
sarily
to
take
steps
to
reinforce
by
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