Reviews : Delinquency: the problem and its prevention DENIS STOTT Spectrum Publications, 1982; pb; pp 323; £9.95
| Published date | 01 September 1983 |
| Author | Barrie Crook |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058303000318 |
| Date | 01 September 1983 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
115
what
he
saw
in
his
Social
Services
file
that
prompted
Graham
to
fight
against
what
he
had
become.
As
a
story
of
individual
hardship,
and
ulti-
mately
strength,
the
book
has
considerable
emotional
impact
but
it
also
raises
implicit,
wider
ranging
questions
about
social
work
practice
and
the
nature
of
state
provision
for
children
in
care.
BRYAN TAYLOR
Probation
Officer,
Nottingham
Delinquency:
the
problem
and
its
prevention
DENIS
STOTT
Spectrum Publications,
1982;
pb;
pp 323;
£9.95
Dr.
Stott’s
aim
is
to
provide
social
workers
with
a
working
guide
to
the
prevention
of delinquency.
He
sees
family
weakness
as
the
link
between
wider
trends
e.g.
poverty
and
cultural
disintegration,
and
juvenile
crime.
He
develops
a
typology
of
stressful
family
situations
likely
to
lead
to
delinquency.
The
book
is
polemical.
He
criticises
the
philosophy
of
diversion,
tying
it
more
closely
to
treatment.
He
would
like
to
see
the juvenile
court
decentralised,
with
panels
sentencing
their
community’s
own
offenders.
In
his
plan
the
social
worker
should
be
the
expert
in
family
casework.
For
colleagues
working
with
families
the
typology
will
be
useful,
though
his
underlying
research
is
rather
dated.
He
does
not
ignore
the
wider
issues
and
his
community
centred
proposals
are
interesting.
He
rather
unfashionably
wants
social
work
to
concentrate
on
the
family,
but
his
position
is
consistently
argued
and
worthy
of
attention.
BARRIE
CROOK
Probation
Officer,
Nottingham
Consulting
in
Child
Custody:
An
Introduction
to
the
Ugliest
Litigation
for
Mental-Health
Professionals
MELVIN
G.
GOLDZBAND,
M
D
Lexington
Books,
1982;
pp
183;
hb
This
publication
seeks
to
provide
guidance
and
confidence
to
’mental
health
professionals’
in
the
difficult
field
of
custody
and
access
litigation.
In
America,
the
term
’mental
health
professional’
refers
to
psychiatrists,
physicians
and
clergy,
as
well
as
probation
officers
and
social
workers,
and
the
author
gives
us
to
understand
that their
experience
as
independent
enquirers
into
the
welfare
of
children
is
quite
limited.
The
book
contains
some
useful
case
histories
and
a
trial
transcript,
but
covers
much
familiar
ground
about
’the
best
interests
of
the
child’.
Its
usefulness
to
the
British
reader
lies
mainly
in
a
reference
capacity,
though
its
message
that
the
professional
in
the
role
of
child
advocate
should
be
stimulated
rather
than
unnerved
by
the
prospect
of
a
courtroom
battle,
is
one
which
offers
encouragement
to
us
all.
GWYNETH
BOSWELL
Probation
Officer,
Merseyside
Punishment,
Danger
and
Stigma
NIGEL
WALKER
Basil
Blackwell,
1980;
pb;
pp
206;
£5.25
In Behaviour and Misbehaviour, Nigel W alker
showed
himself to
be
an
accomplished
exponent
of philosophical
techniques
in
the
elucidation
of
criminological
issues,
and
the
present
work
is
similarly
conscientious
and
analytical.
It
can
be
read
as
a
sequence
of essays
on
the
moral
aspects
of
punishment
and
its
unity
is
constituted
less
by
a
sustained
argument
than
by
its
characteristic
stance
of
scepticism.
If
Walker’s
position
is
broadly
reductivist,
it
is
not
because
he
is
unaware
of
the
dangers
of
an
uncritical
enthusiasm
for
treatment
or
deterrence,
but
because
he
sees
denunciation
as
an
imposter
and
retributivism
as
bankrupt.
Walker
attempts
to
construct
a
case
in
its
strongest
form,
rather than
criticise
a
caricature.
His
discussion
of ‘Treating’
is
more
sympathetic
than
many
accounts
and
he
may
be
too
generous
in
his
consideration
of
deterrence.
On
the
other
hand,
I
doubt
that
retributivists
would
regard
as
adequate
his
account
of their
position:
any
accept-
able
formulation
must
surely
involve
the
concept
of
desert,
however
intractable
that
notion.
The
chapters
’Mitigating
and
Aggravating’
and
‘Stigmatismg’,
discussing
unforeseen
and
in-
formal
penalties,
introduce
much
of importance.
‘Protecting’
is
a
provocative
defence
of adopting
protective
measures
in
certain
cases.
There
is,
however,
no
discussion
of reparation
and
how
that
principle
might
be
realised.
Nor
is
there
an
analysis
of the
morality
of the
different
means
of
influencing
conduct
to
complement
the
account
of the
aims
of treatment.
Walker
is
constructive,
but
sceptical
and
dismissive
of
facile
and
rhetorical
solutions.
There
is
much
with
which
many
will
disagree,
but
the
work
is
so
patient,
honest
and
lucid
that
one
cannot
but
become
clearer
about
what
is
at
issue
m
the
various
debates
and
what
an
acceptable
solution
would
have
to
look
like.
ROB
CANTON
Probation
Officer,
Nottingham
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