'Talk With Us, Not At Us': How to develop partnerships between families in poverty and professionals ATD Fourth World Publications, 1996; pp 61; £5 pbk
| DOI | 10.1177/026455059604300314 |
| Author | Sheila Gray |
| Date | 01 September 1996 |
| Published date | 01 September 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
164
the
extent
to
which
youth
are
the
(largely
unacknowledged)
victims
of
crime
and
harassment,
(see Anderson
S.
et
al,
Cautionary
Tales:
Young
People,
Crime
and
Policing
in
Edinburgh,
1994).
Ian
Loader,
one
of
the
original
research
team,
seeks
to
take
the
issues
forward
by
focusing
in
more
detail
on
the
vital
significance
of
public
space
in
the
lives
and
cultural
identity
of
young
people,
where
they
readily
generate
’respectable
fears’
among
adults,
where
they
experience
a
raft
of
threats
to
their
safety
or
autonomy,
and
where
they
tend
to
be
policed
in
an
over-
controlling,
under-protective
manner.
He
goes
on
to
theorise
troubled
police-
youth
relations
in
the
context
of
contemporary
social
theory,
drawing
primarily
on
Jurgen
Habermas’
theory
of
’communicative
action’,
a
concept
which
tries
to
’steer
a
path
between
the
instrumental
rationality
that
has
come
to
dominate
contemporary
public
life
and
those
post-modem
critics
whose
response
has
been
a
deep
scepticism
towards
the
prospect
of
employing
rationality
in
the
service
of
human
freedom’.
This
lofty
conceptualisation
isn’t
easy
to
encapsulate
in
a
nifty
single
sentence
summary
but
is
s
about
the
enhancement
of
public
democratic
discourse,
free
of
instrumental
persuasion
or
coercion.
Thus
Loader
develops
a
critique
of
managerialist
ideology
which
has
come
to
dominate
official
policing
discourses
and
to
identify
alternative,
more
democratic
ways
of
developing
police
accountability.
He
argues
that
police-youth
relations
are
particularly
bedevilled
by
the
absence
of
democratic
communication,
causing
frustration,
resentment
and
a
sense
of
futile
inevitability
across
the
seeming
divide.
He
suggests
that
an
ear
tuned
to
the
authentic
voice
of
young
people
and
main
grade
police
officers
reveals the
embryonic
potential
for
true
dialogue.
Youth
have
clear
ideas
about
the
policing
they
desire
and
value
and
a
powerful
critique
of
the
policing
they
get.
Many
readers
will
appreciate
the
insights
offered
about
the
reality
of
street
life
and
youthful
survival
and
transitions,
rather
than
the
applied
critical
theorising,
but
Loader’s
thesis
is
an
instructive
and
accessible
route
into
bigger
picture
issues
which
connect
with
the
limitations
of
other
public
service
initiatives
to
harness
’instrumental
rationality’
at
the
expense
of
’communicative
reason’.
Nigel Stone
’Talk
With
Us,
Not
At
Us’:
How
to
develop
partnerships
between
families
in
poverty
and
professionals
ATD
Fourth
World
Publications,
1996;
pp 61; £5 pbk
The
rhetoric
of
partnerships
increasingly
infiltrates
discussion
about
the
future
development
of
the
Probation
Service.
This
discussion
is
necessarily
complicated
by
the
contradictory
demands
on
the
Service
as
an
agency
of
justice,
welfare
and
control.
In
turn,
these
contradictions
have
implications
for
accountability
to
the
client,
the
public
and
the
state.
This
book
provides
a
contribution
to
this
discussion
as
it
is
an
evaluation
of
the
partnership
project,
undertaken
by
the
charity ATD
Fourth
World,
whose
approach
is
based
on
the
commitment
to
human
rights
and
their
violation
through
poverty.
ATD
Fourth
World
recognised
the
legislative
opportunity
presented
by
the
To continue reading
Request your trial