Help Wanted? A Narrative Look at Penal Welfarism ‘From Below’
| DOI | 10.1177/1473225419850368 |
| Author | Bernd Dollinger |
| Date | 01 August 2019 |
| Published date | 01 August 2019 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1473225419850368
Youth Justice
2019, Vol. 19(2) 120 –136
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1473225419850368
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Help Wanted? A Narrative
Look at Penal Welfarism
‘From Below’
Bernd Dollinger
Abstract
This article explores principles of penal welfarism. For a number of years, there has been a wide-ranging
debate on the impact of penal welfarism and on its transformation or indeed its possible supersedence.
To date, however, discussions have rarely started with those directly affected (‘from below’) and asked
how welfarist measures are experienced and perceived by young people who have been charged with or
convicted of offences. This is the approach taken here as I focus on young defendants in the context of their
trial. The young people describe in detail problematic life stories and personal challenges. However, the
majority reject any attempt to label them as cases for education or rehabilitation. Help in the respondents’
view should primarily resolve specific, pragmatic problems, and not interfere with their identity.
Keywords
labelling, narratives, penal welfarism, trial, youth crime
According to Ward and Maruna (2007), offender rehabilitation does not have a good repu-
tation with the public. Using the example of the United States, they outline how rehabili-
tation has been the subject of extensive criticism and has frequently been sidelined in the
face of demands for tough sentences. Garland (2001) argues that a key reason for the loss
of trust in rehabilitation lies with the middle classes, who progressively withdrew their
support for the concept at the heart of penal welfarism, namely, improving offenders
through integrative measures.1 The situation is rather different in current criminology:
rehabilitation is now once again broadly valued. Promoting social integration and dealing
with individual risks are seen as effective tools in the prevention of reoffending.
Martinson’s (1974) motto that there is no evidence of rehabilitative measures effectively
reducing reoffending (‘nothing works’) was once cited like a mantra, but has long been
revised. Numerous studies have now found successful options for facilitating the process
Corresponding author:
Bernd Dollinger, University of Siegen, Adolf-Reichwein-Str. 2a, Siegen 57072, Germany.
Email: bernd.dollinger@uni-siegen.de
850368YJJ0010.1177/1473225419850368Youth JusticeDollinger
research-article2019
Original Article
Dollinger 121
of delinquent desistance through supportive measures (e.g. Andrews and Bonta, 2010;
Cullen, 2013; Cullen and Jonson, 2011; Lösel, 2012). Punitive intervention, in other
words intervention based on deterrence and punishment, is seen at best as ineffective
(Howell et al., 2014; Lipsey, 2009; Petrosino et al., 2012); rehabilitation is considered a
more effective way of avoiding delinquency. While there may not be a public or political
consensus on this point, criminological research into reoffending advocates welfarist
measures as the appropriate response. This once again puts the focus on the person of the
delinquent. Yet astonishingly, his or her perspective is often forgotten. Although individ-
ual studies reconstruct the experiences of young people with the criminal justice system
(e.g. McAlister and Carr, 2014; Rajah et al., 2014; Saarikkomäki, 2016), it is hardly
known how they assess it to become the (potential) object of rehabilitation. That is why
this article consciously approaches the issue ‘from below’, focusing on the subjective
viewpoint of young defendants and convicted offenders and asking the following: What is
their assessment of welfarist measures? When decisions are taken on the response to their
delinquency, do they actually want to receive help?
At first glance, it would appear obvious for defendants in a trial to advocate supportive
measures. Who would not consider the potential allocation of resources as positive? If
there is choice between help and punishment – for example, between a social training
course and imprisonment – surely anyone would prefer the training course. In fact, how-
ever, the situation is much more complicated. I would like to raise three points from the
wide-ranging debate on punishment and rehabilitation that could be relevant from the
perspective of young offenders: the punitive nature of welfarism, the danger of labelling
and the risk of a broadening of social control.
First, the boundary between help and punishment is not always clear. Garland (2001: 8)
points to the priority of protecting society even in cases where an offender is to be helped.
Rehabilitation thus does not automatically mean a long-term focus on the good of the indi-
vidual. Rehabilitation can mean that the risk of reoffending is to be reduced without this
requiring serious consideration for the subjective well-being of offenders (see, for example,
Andrews and Bonta, 2010). Robinson (2008) talks of current forms of a ‘late-modern reha-
bilitation’, which can include relatively harsh measures: ‘In short, it is increasingly the case
that rehabilitation has “teeth”’ (Robinson, 2008: 437). There are, it is true, also newer ways
of planning and providing help that explicitly consider the subjective view and well-being
of delinquents (such as the Good Lives Model; Ward, 2012; Ward and Maruna, 2007).
Nonetheless, in the context of ‘late-modern rehabilitation’, the well-being of delinquents
seems less important than the safety of the population.
Second, rehabilitation can mean interference in the character of the offender. If the
focus is on the person of the offender rather than the offence, sanctions touch the character
of the offender at its very core. Measures, as Garland (1985/2018: 122) details for the case
of social work, focus on ‘the moralisation of offenders’, on the transformation of their
character. Foucault (1979) also highlighted this aspect by reconstructing the historical
invention of a criminogenic life story as the far-reaching influence on delinquents of the
punitive state. Tannenbaum had already previously argued that measures following delin-
quency associate a person with negative characteristics, irrespective of whether or not the
intention is to help. In his words, ‘the person becomes the thing he is described as being.
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