Jigsaw: A Political Criminology of Youth Homelessness Pat Carlen Open University Press, 1996; pp 162; £14.99 pbk
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059604300315 |
| Date | 01 September 1996 |
| Published date | 01 September 1996 |
| Author | Nick Day |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
165
Children
Act
1989
with
its
focus
on
partnership
between
disadvantaged
families
and
professional
workers,
as
coinciding
with
its
method
of
operating
on
collective
and
reciprocal
action.
To
demonstrate
the
reality
of
partnership,
it
initiated
a
three
year
project
in
which
disadvantaged
citizens
were
brought
together
with
each
other,
social
workers,
other
professionals,
ATD
Fourth
World
staff
and
volunteers.
The
aims
of
the
project
were
to
find
out
how
disadvantaged
families
can
overcome
obstacles
which
prevent
their
confident
participation
with
professionals,
and
to
explore
how
statutory
and
voluntary
organisations
can
reach
a
better
understanding
about
their
clients
efforts
to
help
themselves.
The
project
involved
partnership
at
three
levels:
the
individual,
local
and
national.
Fundamental
to
these
strands
of
partnership
is
the belief
that
clients
have
the
best
knowledge
of
their
situation
alongside
the
necessity
that
professionals
value
this
expertise.
The
book
examines
obstacles
needed
to
be
overcome
to
facilitate
successful
partnership
work.
Clarity
about
whose
needs
the
system
serves
is
pivotal
to
the
operation
of
partnerships
and
the
tendency
for
social
work
practice
to
be
over
reliant
on
guidelines
and
regulations
is
pathologised.
In
compensation
for
this,
the
book
suggests
the
complimentary
role
of
professionals
enabling
client
participation
in
procedures,
whilst
also
enhancing
client
understanding
of
the
social
and
political
processes.
This
book
is
a
passionate
polemic
endorsing
the
necessity
of
enhanced
client
participation
and
representation
in
partnerships.
Absent
is
any
discussion
about
how
this
issue
is
explicitly
applicable
to
the
work
of
the
Probation
Service.
As
such
it
provides
a
basis
upon
which
discussion
can
develop.
For
me,
two
dilemmas
for
discussion
were
apparent.
The
first
issue
is
how
a
focus
on
offending
can
be
reconciled
with
notions
of
empowerment,
how
the
aim
of
offenders
assuming
responsibility
for
their
behaviour
in
circumstances
defined
by
poverty
can
occur,
without
social
issues
becoming
displaced
as
personal
problems.
Secondly,
the
issue
of
professionalism
is
problematised
by
this
book,
due
to
its
arguments
for
a
renegotiation
of
professional
power.
Fundamentally,
this
involves
a
disruption
of
probation
epistemology,
and
the
sensitivity
of
this
issue
is
compounded
in
the
current
climate
where
the
threat
of
deskilling
exists.
The
prospect
of
practice
becoming
anodyne
in
a
context
of
increasing
economic
accountability
is
a
real
one,
which
must
be
acknowledged
and
this
book,
by
encouraging
a
more
proactive
role
for
clients,
illustrates
one
method
of
further
utilizing
partnership
potential
so
that
it
positively
transforms
the
complexion
of the
Probation
Service.
Sheila
Gray
Probation
Officer,
Inner
London
a political criminology
Jigsaw: A
Political
Criminology
of
Youth
Homelessness
Pat
Carlen
Open
University
Press,
1996;
pp
162;
£14.99
pbk
Pat
Carlen’s
excellent
book
examines
the
historical,
economic
and
political
conditions
which
have
shaped
youth
homelessness
in
our
Society.
The
’Jigsaw’
is
her
preferred
method
of
presenting
her
arguments.
It
is
based
on
interweaving
the
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