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.
According to Ward and Maruna (2007), offender rehabilitation does not have a good reputation with the public. Using the example of the United States, they outline how rehabilitation 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 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 individual 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, however, 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 individual. 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 rehabilitation’, 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 delinquency 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. Nor does it seem to matter whether the valuation is made by those who would punish or by those who would reform’ (Tannenbaum, 1938/1973: 215). Not only punishment but also help can label, for its message is that a person has character deficits and is unable to help themselves (Edelman, 1977; Garland, 2017). Being categorised as in need of help may subjectively be experienced as worse than punishment, for need directly discredits the person where punishment is directed only at behaviour.
Third, supportive measures can increase the scope of social control, an issue discussed as ‘net widening’ (Ashworth and Roberts, 2017; Blomberg et al., 1986; Decker, 1985): welfarist measures extend state institutions’ options for intervention, even if the measures themselves are benevolent in intent and provide resources for individual offenders (Hope, 2011: 458–459). A social training course is not just an alternative to tougher interventions, it can also be ordered by a court as an alternative to no intervention at all. In this case, what we have are forcible measures that can systematically disadvantage young offenders in particular. This can happen both directly and indirectly. Offenders can be directly disadvantaged on the basis of welfarist legitimisation. A survey by Buckolt (2009: 277) of youth court judges in Germany found that 20.9 per cent of respondents were prepared to sentence someone to a prolonged period of detention for a violent offence if a young offenders’ institution offered particularly good education and training opportunities. Help can therefore turn against those who are supposed to be helped. In such cases, welfarist thinking results in tougher or longer punishment. Disadvantages can also be inflicted indirectly. A study by Rajah et al. (2014) provides one example. The study involved multiple interviews with young detainees who were taking part in a training course – an initial interview during their detention, an interview when they were released and another interview 6 months later – and participant observation. It found that the training course had motivated them to change their behaviour. However, many of the young people expressed criticism after their release, as they were unable to translate their new-found motivation into genuine opportunities: they lacked access to resources. ‘They wondered why they were “encouraged to work inside, but couldn’t work outside”’ (Rajah et al., 2014: 298). In retrospect, they were therefore critical of the programme in which they had participated. In this case too, welfarist help goes against those whom it is supposed to benefit, in this case because of a lack of resources. The young people have been taught attitudes that they could not then transform into action and that ultimately have not overcome their social exclusion. In fact, that social exclusion has been forcibly brought home to them.
As we can see, it is by no means certain that young offenders will welcome welfarist measures. Those measures can be punitive in nature, can label offenders and can broaden social control. However, it is unclear how offenders themselves judge the situation.
Methodical Approach and Sample
Narratives in the context of a trial
It is not enough simply to ask whether individual measures are seen as good or bad. Whether or not someone considers a certain institutional measure as useful is embedded in that person’s narratives about himself or herself, in the subjective explanation of the offences in question, in interactions with other people and in previous experiences of institutions of help and punishment. A narrative approach is appropriate to reconstruct this complexity. Analysing the narratives of offenders is a way of exploring how they see and define themselves in a social and institutional context (see, for example, Maruna, 2001; Presser, 2008; Presser and Sandberg, 2015). Narratives place narrators in contexts, for stories are never exclusively individual. Instead, narrators must draw on cultural interpretative repertoires if their stories are to be understood and appear plausible (Wetherell, 1998). This is particularly important in relation to criminality and communication in the context of criminal justice: the starting point for communication on criminality and the dispensation of punishment or other measures is a discussion of individual responsibility on the basis of cultural – and of course legal – ascriptions (Polletta et al., 2011; Watson, 1976). Offenders are first and foremost seen as persons who wilfully violate the law and thus cause harm to others or at least accept that such harm may occur. They are the active agents in the commission of an offence (Loseke, 2003). Victims, on the contrary, are seen as the passive sufferers: harm is inflicted upon them without them having an active role in provoking it (Tabbert, 2015). In the debate on differing narratives about a (possibly) criminal act, criminal trials involve a contention to prove responsibility in order to determine guilt and on that basis to make a decision on punitive or supportive sanctions.
The reasoning behind punishment is different from the reasoning behind supportive measures: punishment is, on principle, based on individual capacity and responsibility, on the definition of crime as the ‘“evil choice” of given individuals’ (Melossi, 2008: 247). Rehabilitation, on the contrary, presents criminality as the consequence of individual shortcomings, which are generally put down to social circumstances (Hester and Eglin, 2017: 76–79). If serious criminality is found that cannot be explained by individual shortcomings, punishment appears the logical option; however, if the person has a difficult life story, there is a relatively strong logical argument for addressing those issues with help rather than punishment in order to prevent future criminality. The way defendants portray themselves in trials is shaped by such ascriptions (Atkinson and Drew, 1979; Drew, 1992; Emerson, 1969; Scheppele, 1994).
Whether or not welfarist measures are supported as a response to (alleged) offences is a product of the respective stories. For example, it would not be logical to demand a social training course in response to criminality if acts were not explained by personal shortcomings on the part of the offender. From the defendants’ perspective, they need to provide narratives that consistently relate self-pathologising explanations of criminality, rehabilitative responses to criminality and the roles of other parties involved in order to justify supportive measures. Those narratives must centre on defendants’ self-categorisation as persons in need of help who could benefit from welfarist measures – at least if this is what they want.
Sample
Trials involving young offenders were taken as the basis for an analysis of relevant narratives. As noted above, the research questions are the following: What is the youths’ assessment of welfarist measures? When decisions are taken on the response to their delinquency, do they actually want to receive help? A total of 15 young offenders, all male, were interviewed before and after their trial; the trials were also analysed through observation. The age of the interviewees ranged from 15 to 21 years; each of them was indicted as a juvenile (based on the German Youth Courts Law, see below). The interviews were designed to obtain as comprehensive a narrative as possible from each of the young people. In the first interview, they were to talk about themselves, the offences and experiences with family and friends and of institutions and earlier criminal justice and/or welfarist measures. The second interview was conducted to find out the young people’s views of the trial and judgement. We only interviewed young people who were facing possible prison terms, in other words who had been charged with relatively serious offences. The question of whether they actually received a prison sentence or a (welfarist) alternative was ordered instead was of considerable importance for them.
Gaining access to the respondents posed considerable challenges, as they were the subjects of ongoing investigations. We were finally able to establish contact through the young offenders’ institution in cases where the defendants had yet to stand trial but were already in detention for other offences. Contact was also established, e.g., through social work institutions with young offenders who were there as an alternative to remand.
To assess the findings, it is important to note that the study was conducted in Germany, a country in which welfarist principles have a relatively strong role in youth crime sentencing (Cavadino and Dignan, 2006; Tonry, 2004). Offenders aged between 14 and 17 years (at the time of the offence) are judged according to a special law for young offenders (Jugendgerichtsgesetz, Youth Courts Law). This law also applies to most offenders aged between 18 and 20 years (at the time of the offence). The Youth Courts Law and proceedings against young offenders follow criminal justice and constitutional principles (Albrecht, 2010; Laubenthal et al., 2015); however, the principles of welfarism are to guide court rulings. Those principles are described as the intention to ‘educate’ young offenders (Ostendorf, 2013). Education can happen in different ways, but at its heart is the concept that recidivism can be prevented by influencing the character of offenders. Social workers therefore must be involved in proceedings pursued under the Youth Crime Law (Trenczek, 2018). For example, representatives of youth welfare services acting as the ‘youth courts assistant service’ (Jugendgerichtshilfe) assess young defendants’ character and report on that assessment in the trial before the youth court. During the trial, the youth courts assistance service also makes a proposal – that is however not binding for the youth court – on the measures for which the court could opt. If a defendant is convicted, the sentence can be imprisonment or other measures that are much more educational in nature. 2
For young defendants, the trial’s dual legal and welfarist focus means that they need to consider both legal aspects (responsibility for a possible crime and punishment for that action) and welfarist principles (relating to a potentially disadvantaged socialisation story and a corresponding need for help) for their self-portrayal in court.
Findings
The defendants in our sample were facing potential imprisonment. They could therefore have been expected to seek to avoid that eventuality at all costs and try to obtain a ‘softer’ supportive or educational measure. However, this was only in part borne out by the interviews with the young defendants and the way in which they presented themselves during their trials. True, the dominant desire was to avoid imprisonment. Yet, there was by no means a consensus that welfarist support was desirable. This is evident from the way in which the young people first present the root cause of offences: their life story and, as a consequence of that life story, their gradual involvement in crime through no fault of their own (‘Sad stories and the automatism of criminal careers’ section). On this basis, they demanded a clement verdict and some practical help – but not ‘substantial’ education (‘Education is irrelevant (but sometimes help would be quite useful)’ section).
Sad stories and the automatism of criminal careers
Sad stories were the main biographical narrative among defendants (Dollinger, 2020). As defined by Goffman (1961/1991), sad stories are narratives that suspend the question of individual responsibility by explaining negative events in the present by a negative past. A characteristic example is that of Andy, who tells the following story in the interview prior to his trial:
Start at the very beginning and tell me about it all.
(Hesitantly) Fff, yeah I started having problems in (.) two thousand and twelve.
Mmm.
After my grandpa died.
Mmm.
That just pulled the rug from under me. (.) And then alcohol, drugs too.
Mmm.
The wrong friends. (.) And then more and more there was this KICK. (..) and more and more money, see? 3
Andy – who at another point in the interview literally describes himself as a ‘problem child’ – gives explicit reasons for him becoming delinquent: the traumatic experience of the death of his grandfather, alcohol and drugs, and the ‘wrong friends’. Here, we have a combination of various different culturally established causal interpretations: the death causes trauma; Andy paints a picture of a difficult event with which he did not cope well. Those who cannot adequately process trauma turn to other ways of dealing with it, and these can include alcohol and drugs. Common sense defines drugs and alcohol as problematic and addictive but widely used substances for regulating problems. The ‘wrong friends’ are another potential cause of delinquency that common sense recognises. 4 They represent the social possibility of young people going ‘off the rails’. Trauma, alcohol/drugs and the ‘wrong friends’ act in the story as unidirectional and mutually aggravating negative influences that lead to an escalation of criminality: Andy is unable to cope with his trauma, which draws him into crime, and he commits more and more offences in his search for a ‘KICK’ and for money. He is now launched on a fully fledged criminal career that started with an event, the death of his grandfather, for which he bore no responsibility. Later in the interview, Andy uses the image of an escalator to illustrate these developments.
Yeah, mm, lost my grandpa, alcohol, drugs and then things kicked off, right? Right down the escalator.
The image of the escalator says a lot: the tragic death of his grandfather – from cancer, as Andy explains at another point in the interview – takes Andy on a downwards spiral, automatically propelling him into an escalating career in drugs and crime. At no point is there any indication of personal agency. It is outside factors that caused and aggravated the problem.
This sad story draws directly on culturally established aetiologies of the occurrence of youth crime. In the context of a trial, it provides widely comprehensible explanations of the senselessness of punishment. At this point, it is worth exploring Garfinkel’s comments on decision-making in a traffic court, which he explains on the basis of ‘common sense models’: ‘Those common sense models are models jurors use to depict, for example, what culturally known types of persons drive in what culturally known types of ways at what typical speeds at what types of intersections for what typical motives. (…) If the interpretation makes good sense, then that’s what happened.’ (Garfinkel, 1967: 106).
What can, according to Garfinkel, be presented as ‘meaningfully consistent’ is what is accepted in court as what actually happened. Plausibility creates the impression of truth. Analyses of the self-portrayal of defendants and communication in courts confirm the significance of assessments that typify and are based on everyday experiences; judges make decisions on the basis not only of legal but also of everyday knowledge (Ewick and Silbey, 1995; Polletta et al., 2011; Scheppele, 1994; Von Arnauld and Martini, 2015).
The common sense model used by Andy presents a young person who is led off the straight and narrow by bad experiences and – as the image of the escalator emphasises – becomes more and more deeply involved in crime through no fault of his own. Such a story clearly has a key function in the context of criminal law: it delegitimises punishment. As Andy bears no responsibility, imprisoning him appears unnecessary as this would hardly solve his problems (quite the reverse, prison would in fact compound personal problems and increase the likelihood of reoffending upon release, as several respondents explicitly state). Addressing his problems, however, would appear a plausible option. He seems to need help better to deal with traumas, better to resist negative influences and to resolve his drugs problems.
Education is irrelevant (but sometimes help would be quite useful)
So far, we have seen self-portrayal tailored to rehabilitation: young offenders present themselves as people in need of help, people whose lives have long been on the downwards escalator. At this point, however, there is a clear departure from the expected approach, for the stories do not demand education (or rehabilitation) by the competent state institutions. In fact, most of the young people strongly reject calls to educate them in order to promote desistance. This rejection contradicts the principle of the sad story: those who cite a difficult life story as the cause of their criminality seem to require help. Refusing that help may appear unconvincing (as rehabilitative or educational help, by definition, aims to overcome biographical problems). The following example illustrates the resulting dilemma on what line of argument to take. In his first interview, Bjoern says that he has had problems since childhood, but that attempts to change him are useless because:
Yeah, I can’t be doing with any of that. That’s the way it is. Because if not even my mum could change me or educate me, no one else’s gonna.
Yes.
Apart from me.
Bjoern is arguing that only he can bring about a change in his character. He rejects attempts to change him through external, institutional support, stressing his own will (elsewhere in the same interview: ‘But somehow I always managed to get back on my feet again. […] Where there’s a will, there’s a way, I always say’.). This aspect is key in the interviews with him, as in the other interviews. Respondents are often adamant that they are able to lead their own independent life and will not allow themselves to be led astray or let down by others. Calls for education as prescribed by state institutions undermine this insistence that they are able to get their lives under control themselves or have already done so. Those calls are therefore rejected to emphasise the young people’s own independent will.
Yet, this does not mean that the respondents are unwilling to change; the situation is more complicated. They paint a detailed picture of problems in their personal background, and it would go against common sense and plausible self-portrayal to refuse to explore potential solutions to those problems. It is merely that social institutions are apparently incapable of bringing about a change in behaviour. As many of the young people had countless previous experiences of these institutions and they still entered a career in crime, their criticism is not unexpected. Bjoern is one example. When asked what form of support he wants, he responds as follows in his second interview, after his conviction:
Hm. (…) Yeah, psychological blablabla, but I wouldn’t say that any more.
Mmm.
(Angry) I don’t think anything- I don’t think anything of all that, that’s that. Even the YOUTH welfare services and all the rest, I don’t think much of all that (…).
Have you had bad experiences with them all or (.) d’you think it’s not the right option for you? (…)
Yes, I’ve had bad- yeah bad experiences. (.) Let’s say, ((catches his breath)) put it like this, I- I could manage but I’d need someone- (.) I’m not one for for doing it alone let’s put it like that.
Mmm, mmm.
So, yeah, if I had someone there who- who like- who did that stuff with me together, everything like.
Bjoern sees himself as needing help, but is sceptical about psychologists and social workers or youth welfare services. To him, education is associated with institutions, and in the second interview, he again makes it clear that not even his mother was able to educate him, and that state institutions therefore cannot either. It is thus not help in general, but institutional help that is being rejected. Bjoern stresses his own independent will, but admits that he needs help; however, he does not want any institutional form of support.
Other respondents share this view. Alongside negative experiences with official institutions, there is another point of relevance here: the links in penal welfarism between institutions that support and those that punish. A key accusation voiced by respondents is that representatives of the youth courts assistance service can have a negative influence on the court ruling if they report on the personal problems of the accused. The young people’s efforts to portray themselves positively before the court are undermined by the actions of welfarist institutions, by which the former feel betrayed because they ‘only [say] negative stuff anyway’ (Till, first interview). Karl describes the situation as follows:
The guy from the youth courts assistance service is Mr M. I don’t like him AT ALL. […] Just came out with load of bad stuff.
Criminological findings on the role of the youth courts assistance service support this critical assessment (Hügel, 1988; Ludwig-Mayerhofer and Rzepka, 1998). Studies have found that service staff only partly fulfil their remit, namely, to help the accused and bring the social work concept of education to bear in legal proceedings. Often, they present a young person in predominantly negative terms by outlining his or her problems before the court (Dollinger, 2012). Assistance service staff also, in some cases, propose measures that combine punishment and rehabilitation. The young people then feel as if they have ‘just been dropped in it deeper’ (Andy, first interview). In accordance with research findings on the youth courts assistance service, they, in many cases, take a similarly critical view of this service. While the young people admit to having problems, they hardly ever believe that those problems could be resolved by the institutions of penal welfarism.
The problem with the respondents’ arguments remains: they talk about difficulties to which the solution is unclear. If those difficulties are not addressed, the offender is not unlikely be deemed at high risk of reoffending and to receive a harsh sentence, as the escalator continues to lead downwards. There are two central themes here: that of growing maturity and that of practical, instrumental help.
Growing maturity overcomes earlier criminal inclinations
Just as the beginning of a career in crime is presented as a process with its own internal logic, the end of that career is in some cases portrayed as inevitable. Following all the personal difficulties described in detail, narrators appear now to be firmly on the road to maturity, a maturity that distances them in moral terms from their earlier actions (see also Maruna, 2001: 85–108; Presser, 2008: 62–70). This does not apply to all respondents, but for most, the distancing process is quite pronounced. It can be the result of external factors or happen on its own, more or less spontaneously. In both cases, punishment becomes irrelevant as the accused’s criminal tendencies already appear to have been significantly reduced. One example of growing maturity triggered by external factors is provided by Dieter:
Some guys just don’t get it, d’you understand? Yeah they just keep on smoking or fighting or HAVE to steal. Or- […] Anyway these guys who all get up to shit knows what, they’ve got no structure in life. They hang around, go to school, IF they do, they smoke their joints and fanny about all day. (Slowly) Eyeyey.
Mmm.
(Slowly) Eh peace, what’s up (laughing) and all that. (..) They stopped. I noticed when I […] when I was outside (..) thought I was somebody, right? Thought I had money. (..) No one can touch you. You’re just gonna go into the shop, get yourself something, the others can’t, right (.) and (..) I didn’t notice that I was standing in the same place the whole time (.) and everyone was goin’ past me.
Mmm.
[…] Now I’ve stopped smoking, ((clears his throat)) I do my thing, go to school and everything (…) I’m ch-, I’m changing something. […] Day before yesterday I was in (city in western Germany/home town) at the lawyer’s and probation officer’s, signed up for school and stuff.
Dieter clearly emphasises the difference between the narrator and the narrated: he appears to be a different person from the one he once was, at the time of his offences, for he did ‘get it’. Unlike others, he has seemingly got structure in his life. He is now moving forward where others are standing still; he – once again using the imagery of movement – tells the interviewer what motivated his change in attitude and behaviour: others, that is, ‘normal’ people, went past him while he stood still ‘the whole time’. His earlier feeling of superiority has proved to be an illusion; in other words, he is criticising himself in retrospect and now, as narrator, qualifying himself from a position of moral conformity and intelligence. Now, he deals with his affairs himself and takes responsibility for himself. Social comparisons appear to have made this possible, because they got him thinking. Not just punishment but also help from social work thus seems unnecessary, for he has already changed for the better.
One line of argument that is pursued by this narrative and that draws directly on conventional, moral common sense is that of responsibility – not just for oneself, but also for others, in particular for one’s own family. The importance of this aspect is running through the narratives, just as in criminological desistance research (Maruna, 2001; Sampson and Laub, 2005). They appear to provide proof of a newly acquired moral integrity. On this point, let us go back to Andy, who in the first interview explains that he has become older, more mature and more socially responsible:
You you need to start getting yourself sorted. You can’t just take- eh take things as they come ’til you’re fifty. Not possible.
Mmm.
You need to start getting some kind of structure.
Mmm.
’Cos you’ve got responsibilities, right? But what am I supposed to tell my kid if I have a kid some day? Daddy’s in jail. I’ll tell my kid I was away on a construction job all those years.
Mmm.
Right?
Mmm. So it doesn’t work like that. I mean you do want to-
I want to see my kid and my girlfriend, right? I want to see my kid grow up, I want to see my family regularly. I want to see my Gran, see my nephew.
Such a self-portrayal is quite likely to sound convincing to judges and social workers, for it is based on traditional values dictating that you must take care of your family – whether that be the family you were born into or your own (future) family. Andy seems to have learned and understood that this kind of care cannot be reconciled with a career in crime. As he grows older, that career must come to an end and he must take on responsibility. The desire for structure, concern for family and presentation of personal maturity and determination are together designed to qualify the narrator in morally positive terms.
That this approach can run directly counter to calls for education from welfare institutions is illustrated by Ernst in his first interview:
And then and then they also said I was to go to youth welfare services right, I mean to this other follow-up group and then I was like (.): If I’ve not- if I’ve supposedly not learnt anything, right? (…) Then I won’t learn it now either. I mean I won’t learn- I’m not gonna change here. Either I start thinking differently from the day I’m in jail, like what was I doing, you understand what you’ve done or you don’t understand it and just think: screw it right.
Ernst had already been in detention before this initial interview. This is why he is arguing that either you learn from that experience or you do not. In response to the proposal that he should attend ‘youth welfare services’ or a social work ‘follow-up group’ after the upcoming court ruling, he counters that there is simply no point. If he has not learned so far, he is not going to learn. A key point here is his belief that youth welfare services cannot change him. Institutional help is once again presented as useless (although imprisonment could, according to him, give someone food for thought).
Practical help
The analyses so far suggest that welfarist measures are largely useless. According to the narratives, welfarist measures cannot educate the young people and therefore cannot prevent future criminality. Where young people have, as they claim, already matured, this makes punishment just as pointless as attempts to influence them through education. The narrators present themselves as independent of the court and its welfarist or retributive judgements. Whether or not they will continue to be delinquent depends ultimately on themselves, their will and their personal maturity. They are implicitly asserting that the justice system has no realistic chance of genuinely ending careers in crime. This assertion does not mean that there is no appreciation of the value of help. However, the narrators have a different understanding of help than that expressed by concepts such as education or rehabilitation, for what they describe in positive terms or expressly wish for is practical support, for example, in writing applications, as Dieter outlines in his interview. Another revealing example comes from Andy in his first interview:
You can’t keep me from cocking up. Nobody can.
No.
But you can keep an eye on things, right?
Yes.
So how are your finances? How are things? (.) You’ve got this meeting or that meeting with probation services. Or you’ve got paperwork to hand in, or some official appointment, right?
He himself will decide whether or not he remains delinquent. Here too, the notion of self-determination is fundamental, for he and he alone decides on his delinquency. Practical help, however, would still not be a bad thing. Fred takes a similar line of argument in his second interview:
If I’d a question or like needed some advice or something, or for someone to give me a different angle on something, em, then I’d definitely need someone. And apart from that, support, em (…) not at the moment. (…) Otherwise I’m actually pretty independent.
At another point in the interview, Fred is more explicit, saying that help in the search for an affordable flat or a job would be useful, but that is all. Further measures appear to threaten his independence; at least, in the passage cited, he indicates an opposition between help and his independence (‘Otherwise I’m actually pretty independent’). Welfarist measures thus hinder the pursuit of personal independence. The respondents want to demonstrate that they are able to stand on their own two feet and take on responsibility. Social work help appears to jeopardise this desire wherever it is aimed at more than just providing specific advice or practical help.
There are, however, two exceptions. First, the respondents appreciate the fact that the professionals sometimes do more than just their job. When they actually take an interest in the young people and, for example, simply spend time with them, this is described in positive terms. The young people do not consider this relevant in the prevention of reoffending, but nonetheless see it as a positive effect of help. Second, help or treatment is of particular importance in relation to drug use and addiction. The respondents repeatedly report relatively high levels of alcohol and drug consumption. Various respondents admitted that this self-portrayal was a conscious decision on their part. In Germany, a prison sentence can be suspended or reduced if an offender is an addict and checks in to an in-patient drug rehabilitation facility. Recounting excessive drug use during a trial was, according to one of the respondents (Bjoern, second interview), a ‘joker’ that he had played to reduce his sentence. Welfarism is thus part of the drama staged before the court. 5 This does not mean that the young people are moved by primarily strategic motives. On the contrary, the study clearly shows that they want – in some cases completely irrationally – to demonstrate their independence and honour and that they have often sought risks and excitement in their lives. Presenting themselves favourably in court was, however, nonetheless of central importance, and reporting alcohol or drugs problems could be useful in that context.
Conclusion
This study focused on young males accused of relatively serious offences. It is to be supposed that different narratives would apply in the cases of female defendants or of less serious offences, in other words the majority of legal breaches of which young people are accused. Nonetheless, criminal policy reforms and public debates on crime often centre on male serious offenders, and the findings here are relevant to that group of people.
In the light of current criminological data, there can be no doubt of the effectiveness of welfarist measures for these young people. As detailed at the start of this article, supportive measures are better suited to preventing reoffending than punitive, retributive or deterrent sanctions. The current state of research can be taken as established, and the data used here do not allow any conclusions to be drawn on the effectiveness of individual interventions. What the study does show, however, is the ambiguous nature of penal welfarism. The young defendants take a more critical view than the relevant sections of the criminological profession. Most of the respondents reject demands that they be educated; they prefer pragmatic help with practical problems such as writing job applications, remembering appointments and dealing with bureaucracy.
Identity theory offers a useful perspective from which to interpret this phenomenon. Traditional figures in identity theory such as Erik H. Erikson (1959) described youth as a phase of life in which the search for identity and independence are of overriding importance. More recent identity theories have stressed the constant need to renegotiate and validate identity in its social context (Antaki and Widdicombe, 1998; Bamberg, 2012; De Fina et al., 2006). For young offenders, this clearly presents fundamental challenges. Repeated involvement with care and criminal justice institutions recounted by the interviewees is testimony to experiences of failure and of the disregard of others. The central principles of penal welfarism do not balance out these problems; in fact, they result in their escalation: young offenders often cite problems and challenges in their lives as part of their self-portrayal. However, education or rehabilitation ordered by the courts constitutes external interference with the young people’s very character, rendering their search for individual identity even more uncertain that it already is. Mandatory measures are seen as outside control and are often rejected. Help is permitted primarily only in the form of practical support with specific challenges, in other words in areas that do not directly affect the character of the offender.
A recent analysis by McAra (2017) concluded that the criminal justice system may not be an effective framework within which to provide support for young delinquents. Although individual welfare is a policy objective, McAra found a significant disparity between official policy, institutional practice and the young people’s actual experience. 6 The data analysed here support the view that it is difficult to take young people’s individuality seriously in the context of criminal justice (see Rap and Weijers, 2014). Although a welfarist approach and social resources can be of fundamental importance to the young offenders in the light of their difficult backgrounds, they see the links between help and punishment as problematic. The combination of criminal and welfarist principles that currently predominates in international youth criminal justice systems (Dünkel et al., 2010; Muncie, 2015) means that education and rehabilitation are an integral part of complex confrontations in court and of defendants’ strategic self-portrayal. Convicted offenders – not without reason – perceive institutional help as punishment or coercion and therefore tend to reject it. Those who are forced into education or rehabilitation under criminal law are unlikely to participate willingly in the relevant measures.
As numerous recent studies have found that welfarist measures are a suitable tool for promoting desistance, it could be asked why punishment is still used at all. McAra and McVie (2015) advocate ‘minimal intervention and maximal diversion from formal systems of social control’ to reduce criminality (p. 133). According to this principle, punishment and help should be separated and punishment should be reduced as far as possible, with education and rehabilitation being provided instead as optional services to meet the social and individual needs of young people. This kind of ‘rehabilitation beyond punishment’ (Robinson and Crow, 2009: 7) could resolve the predicament that young offenders concede their need for help but reject support in the form of institutional coercion. It would then be up to social workers and other welfare professionals to motivate the young people to take part in appropriate social programmes and measures.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.