Overstating the case? The trials and tribulations of social work with offenders – Probation Practice and the New Penology: Practitioner Reflections,John Deering;Probation and Social Work on Trial: Violent Offenders and Child Abusers,Wendy Fitzgibbon

John Deering, Probation Practice and the New Penology: Practitioner Reflections, Farnham: Ashgate, 2011, ISBN: 9781409401407 (hbk); 9781409401414 (ebook).

Probation and social work ‘on trial’

In order to make sense of the very different ways in which ‘failures’ to prevent service users causing harm to others have been responded to, Fitzgibbon develops a comparative framework. In the first chapter, she provides extensive detail of the background to four cases – Maria Colwell and Graeme Young in child welfare and probation, respectively, in the 1970s, and BabyP and the Dano Sonnex more recently – as well as their aftermath for the organizations and individual practitioners involved. Whereas the former were arguably dealt with in a considerate and reasonable manner, the latter were much more alarming. As things were ‘whatever the failures, it is the social workers and their managers who are going to sort out the issue’. As things are ‘The issue is to find out who is to blame and subject them to a public pillorying sufficient to shake up the organizations and prevent these things happening again’ (p. 31). In a context in which ‘Moral panic has become a normalized reaction’ (p. 25), Fitzgibbon suggests that we can account for these very different responses by exploring the changing intersections between government, media, community and social work.

The next chapter is an excellent overview of the ways in which macro level societal changes have impacted on the relations between family and community, and with what effect. It provides a concise but comprehensive account of the ways in which informal sources of social control have been undermined by processes of modernization, such that violence – particularly within families – has become less visible than was previously the case. The important role that such visibility played in enabling early social workers to intervene to protect children, and how practices such as home visiting enabled this, are highlighted. Now, however, mutual recognition and support has been replaced by ‘insecurity, disrespect, the decline of trust, high rates of crime and violence … weakening of the family and respect … and a generalized culture of individualistic narcissism’ (p. 56). A dystopian scenario, whereby the absence of community prefigures for some marginalized sections of the population ‘the war of all against all’ (p. 65) is evoked, which clearly has implications for practice. Arguably, this amounts to ‘the collapse of those traditional networks and interactions which made it possible for the practitioner to have a real and complex engagement with the community’ (p. 69). Not only does this make violence and abuse of all varieties more likely, it makes it less visible and consequently those who engage in or are affected by it less ‘knowable’. This is an excellent account, theoretically rich and cogently presented.

The suggestion that community is central to effective practice is significant, as the decline of community requires adaptation on the part of social work agencies. But if anything, internal adaptation has extenuated the negative effects of external change. Here, Fitzgibbon draws on Parton’s (2008) notion of a shift from ‘the social to the informational’, whereby practitioners rely on dispersed, unrelated elements of information drawn from databases as the basis for judgements and decisions, rather than the holistic understanding previously developed interpersonally:

If the target and tick-box orientation has resulted in the pulling of the practitioner away from the client and their social networks towards the computer screen and the risk assessment form, there has been an equally important push from the collapse of those traditional networks and interactions which made it possible for the practitioner to have a real and complex engagement with the community. (pp. 68–69)

At this point, Fitzgibbon’s analysis of ‘why things are as they are’ merges into a critique of the dominance of neoliberal ideology, with its assumptions of individual rationality and responsibility. Where the explanation for both criminality and dysfunctional family relations is clear cut, then logically, there is no need for practitioners to expend their energies developing understanding of the intersections between the individual and their environments, as a basis for complex case formulations, as the ‘why’ is already known. Poor decision making is the result of faulty thinking which must be ‘fixed’ or managed if repetition is to be avoided. Here, then, we find the real motivations for the transformations which have impacted on social work over the last few decades – a ‘cold climate’ in which the ‘social’ assumptions which underpin social work are not just disputed but actively dismantled. This results in a pronounced shift from welfare to security.

The next chapter focuses more explicitly on differential responses to service failure, contrasting the approach which prevailed in the 1970s with that which was evident in the aftermath of the death of Baby P and the Sonnex murders. Following on from the earlier privileging of the rise to prominence of neoliberal thought, the emphasis here is on the fact that ‘such inquiries took place in a very different political and social context’ (p. 82). The context for practice impacts on both the nature of practice and on how failures in practice are responded to. Here, Fitzgibbon is in uber critical mode. The central state’s response to its own crisis of legitimacy has seen increased emphasis on top-down, managerially led initiatives which stress economy, efficiency and effectiveness under the rubric of new public management. These require professionals to subsume their traditional professionalism in the name of the greater good. Resistance to change provokes ever more intensive scrutiny and surveillance, and policy initiatives which limit practitioner discretion. Autonomy is of course a defining trait of professionalism, and so such initiatives amount to deprofessionalization, a process accentuated by externally imposed changes to the identity of practitioners ‘from part of a respected body of skilled professionals to overworked and underpaid “public protection” security guards’ (p. 84). The suggestion here is that deskilling has occurred at precisely the point at which expectations regarding the quality of practice have ratcheted up a gear: ‘increasing demand for infallibility in public protection has occurred in the context of the progressive deskilling and declining professional status of large parts of probation and social work’ (p. 84). Indeed, the deskilling of the practitioner is characterized as ‘the mirror image of the destruction of the client’ (p. 143). Somewhat ironically, then, ‘demands of the public and the media for absolute protection is bound to produce a situation in which failures, however small in number, give rise to high profile media panics’ (p. 84). In combination with a changed political media nexus, in which demands that ‘something must be done’ feed the 24-hour news cycle, the conditions for the sort of reactions which Baby P and Sonnex typify are set. Against such a backdrop, inquiries into what went wrong are unlikely to be accurate or useful, instead ‘going round in circles … unearthing the same problems and repeating endlessly the same recommendations’ (p. 112). Here, this analysis mirrors those critiques of inquiry practice which highlight the fact that the traditional inquiry, with its reliance on hindsight bias and the allocation of responsibility, does not lend itself to full provision of information or the learning of lessons within organizations (Fish et al., 2008). Potentially much more useful would be an analysis – to echo Eileen Munro – of why practitioners act as they do. The suggestion is that traditionally, attempts to understand why things have gone wrong have tended to emphasize the role of individual practitioners – human error – but paid little attention to the possibility that ‘it is the procedures themselves that make it more likely that mistakes will happen because of the way they constrain practitioners’ (p. 113). We are left in little doubt as to Fitzgibbon’s view on this issue, which reflect her critical views on the rise of risk more generally.

Underpinning this critical position is a well developed scepticism as to the accuracy of risk assessment. Fitzgibbon marshals three bodies of argument to support her view. Firstly, research into incidents of serious further offending by offenders on the probation case load demonstrates that often those who commit these offences have previously been categorized as low or medium rather than high risk. The situational contexts which account for the precipitation of such offences are not well captured via risk assessment technologies. Instead these hinder ‘the first job of the practitioner to know their client … by walking the walk’ (p. 136). Secondly, in any case classification by risk category does not make risk decisions with regard to a particular individual any more straightforward, and so subjective judgements must be utilized. She suggests this can lead to the over prediction of dangerousness due to what is referred to as ‘the actuarial fallacy’. Third, she paints a picture of practice in which demands regarding the format and timeliness of assessments inhibit social workers and probation officers from doing these as well as even their highly formalized structure allows. It is at this juncture that the flaws in this analysis become apparent. There is no recognition that the tendency towards over inflation of risk is evident within subjective practitioner judgement rather than the actuarial tools the author is so critical of, which do not in any case claim to make individualized judgements. Relatedly, she suggests that the Offender Assessment System (OASys) into which practitioners input information regarding social and psychological characteristics and a series of static and dynamic risk factors, ‘then allocates a score between 0 and 2 … and then guides the practitioner to the level and type of intervention required by the offender profile’ (p. 140). In fact it does no such thing. It is the practitioner who allocates a score, on the basis of their subjective judgement. Nor – as one respondent claims (p. 138) – are these judgements binding. Rather, practitioners are required to amend their judgement whenever meaningful new information becomes available. Indeed, it would be a misnomer to suggest that OASys actually does anything significant which is not based on practitioner input. If anything, it seeks to ‘make real’ the sort of approach to judgement and decision making that the likes of Eileen Munro have advocated for child welfare, enabling the strengths of intuitive and analytic approaches to judgement and decision making to be combined. It contains an actuarial calculator to generate risk of reoffending scores which are non-binding, in that they determine neither the ‘banding’ an offender is allocated to nor the form of intervention they will receive, and a subjective component in which the practitioner is able to exercise their professional judgement in the process of case formulation. These criticisms are also applied to the Integrated Children’s System without taking into account that although ICS is a structured framework it contains no actuarial component at all. It is one thing to suggest that a structured format inhibits holistic assessment, quite another to suggest that some degree of ecological fallacy is at play within a system that does not actually utilize statistical probabilities. Nor is there recognition that the key issue here is in any case not the evident fallibility of actuarial approaches to risk assessment but rather the relative accuracy of different approaches to risk assessment. As Munro (again) puts it ‘there seems no good reason to suppose that practitioners can do better than statistical prediction. There are several reasons to expect them to do worse’ (2008: 70). Actuarial approaches may be fallible, but clinical judgement is more so.

A new penology?

Deering’s work approaches these issues from a slightly different starting point. At heart it tests the extent to which the changes predicted by Feeley and Simon (1992) in their influential ‘new penology’ thesis are actually evident in probation practice. To this end, he reports the findings of a study into the ways in which recent changes in law and policy are being interpreted and actualized by frontline practitioners. His aim is ‘to reveal a picture of practice in a changed and changing environment’ (p. 124) by investigating the impact of recent policy initiatives on practitioner ‘attitudes, beliefs and values … and how these affected their actual practice’ (p. 2). There is no expectation that findings will be definitive. Rather, Deering acknowledges that ‘the study relied on practitioners’ accounts being more than rhetoric or an idealized version’ (p. 4), and that as such ‘the “window” on practice … might be better regarded as reflections on practice’ (p. 4). From the outset, the relationship between macro, meso and micro level developments is problematized, with Deering making clear that ‘it is unclear whether practitioners have accepted and worked with these changes or have continued to work within a more traditional model of rehabilitation’ (p. 4).

The book begins with the now de rigueur description and analysis of recent macro-level social shifts which are explored through the medium of competing explanatory frameworks – modernity to late modernity, risk society and the ‘hollowing out’ of the state. The author is careful not to attribute undue significance to any one account at this stage, though he does attribute some credence to more nuanced accounts in which the role of agency in decision making is highlighted, whether at the level of politician or practitioner. Here then he is distancing himself to some extent from those accounts which argue that ground level practice is best understood by reference to shifts in governing ideology.

Next, there is a detailed account of changes in legislation and policy in probation since the 1970s. This account is not just descriptive but analytical, highlighting both the general thrust of these developments and also the various paradoxes they provoke. As is the case in such histories, the 1970s are regarded as something of a stepping off point, the juncture at which the assumptions and methods of penal welfarism were undermined by both a decline in faith in the rehabilitative ideal in light of the influential ‘nothing works’ research and concerns about the potential for injustice inherent in unfettered authority-based approaches to practice. Crucially, however, this is the period in which neoliberal thought began to infiltrate the institutions and practices of government in the western world, and the UK and US in particular, via the ascendancy of ‘new right’ politics. The impact on criminal justice of such thinking is generally taken as manifesting in increased emphasis on ‘penological pragmatism’ and proportionality in sentencing. For the probation service, this meant a shift away from rehabilitation towards punishment, at least in theory. It also contributed to the severing of the relationship between probation and social work (a ‘messy divorce’ as McNeill et al. (2010) put it) by abolishing the requirement that probation practitioners hold a social work qualification. In this way the presumed barrier that social work values might present in hindering acceptance of this new rationale for practice was overcome. Subsequently, explicit expectations that officers assess and manage risk entered into probation practice via legislative and policy amendments. Deering does not make the mistake, however, of accepting these as wholly novel developments, suggesting instead that ‘probation officers had always identified “risk” and “dangerousness” and worked with them, but not in such formalized and pre-eminent ways’ (p. 37). This acknowledgment is significant, as it means the foci for his research are the ways in which practitioners negotiate change at micro level, rather than how some catastrophic rupture has deterministically impacted on practice. This dividing line is evident within the wider literature on risk, with some commentators arguing that the rise of risk has had a large-scale detrimental impact on practice, and others suggesting that its effects have been more complex and nuanced. The ‘new penology’ thesis in particular posits shifts in the nature and ethos of probation practice which, if accurate, would indeed spell the end of any enduring commitment to penal-welfarism or any semblance of constructive work with offenders (Gorman et al., 2006), and their replacement by wholly exclusionary and stigmatizing practices.

Deering also spends considerable time discussing the links between managerialism and organizational change, and in doing so to some extent pins his colours to the mast in privileging one particular explanatory framework – New Public Management and ‘modernization’ as a means of ‘rolling back the state’ – ahead of others. In this way his emphasis is slightly different from Fitzgibbon’s. Rather than seeking to account for the problems social work faces in terms of the way in which a concern with risk has impacted on the nature and ethos of practice, Deering explores the ways in which the various components of managerialism have helped or hindered practitioners in their jobs. He makes no assumption that change at policy level will necessarily impact in the way intended but rather seeks to interrogate how practitioners negotiate the changing landscape of practice. Theoretically, Bourdieu’s notion of habitus is drawn upon as a useful way of distinguishing between formal rules and informal organizational cultures. The emphasis here is on the unpredictability rather than the inevitability of the forms of frontline practice which will eventually emerge.

Having elaborated on the study’s background, Deering moves on to present and analyse its findings. First, he focuses on the ways in which recent changes in practice have impacted on the attitudes, values and beliefs of probation practitioners. Underpinning this interest is an assumption that changes associated with ‘the rise of risk’ will have led practitioners to develop approaches to understanding the causes of offending, and thus how best to respond to offenders, which mirror the ideological bearings of their political masters. Crudely, these would be individualized rather than determinist, and manifest in practice which utilized group-based aggregates as a basis for decision making rather than individualized assessment of risk and need, and approaches to intervention which are managerial, controlling and exclusionary.

Deering found very little resistance amongst practitioners to the idea that their work ought to incorporate a concern with the harm that offenders may cause, but equally, little to suggest that in practice this led to a disregard for individualized case formulation which incorporates more than psychological traits indicative of pathologized dangerousness. The use of OASys was primarily regarded neutrally, a framework within which assessment practice is structured rather than a replacement for such judgement, which adds little to what practitioners already know. It most certainly was not regarded as representing the wholesale suppalntation of the subjective by the objective. There was little sense – contra Fitzgibbon – that the structure of the tool determined outcomes, or restricted the ‘sense making’ element of assessment. Deering recognizes that as a ‘third generation’ tool, OASys intentionally seeks to integrate actuarial knowledge with clinical judgement ‘in order to overcome the historical inaccuracy of clinical assessment and the inability of actuarial assessments to consider individual characteristics’ (p. 75, see also Schlonsky and Wagner, 2005). Consequently, ‘assessment was not seen as mechanistic, but the result of careful interviewing based upon knowledge, experience and a theory base’ (p. 85). Nor was it fixed, in the way that Fitzgibbon suggests. Instead work ‘proceeded based on an initial assessment that could be amended’ (p. 169, italics added).

With regard to intervention ‘there was no sense of the purpose of supervision being simply the management of risk or offenders’ (p. 60). Instead, respondents described – and analysis of case files and court reports confirmed – rounded portrayals of the ways in which individual life histories and social circumstances contribute to offending behaviour and sought to provide intervention which reflects these understandings. Although practitioners regarded personal responsibility as important, there was ‘no indication of an adherence amongst assessors of a more radical responsibilization agenda’ (p. 92), as suggested by Kemshall (2002). Although many referred to utilizing a broadly cognitive approach to problem solving in their direct work with offenders, this was not at the expense of due attention to broadly defined ‘social’ issues, including the material and social context of offenders’ environments. Similarly, with regard to enforcement, an area of practice which has been subject to notable scrutiny, although many respondents felt that there had been a need for ‘tightening up’, and accepted the legitimacy of ‘breaching’, they nevertheless reported high levels of autonomy and ‘creativity’. While referring to themselves sometimes as ‘case managers’, the diversity of activities described by respondents did not correspond with pejorative use of that title. Overall, ‘there is little or no sense that practitioners agree with the views of those who characterize probation supervision as being mainly, or exclusively about management or control’ (p. 107). They spoke of ‘false dichotomies’ in the ways in which the various tensions which characterize their role tend to be represented, and remain ‘firmly rooted in a traditional probation approach which took account of risk but did not embrace the new penality’ (p. 165). Quite clearly, such instances highlight a mismatch between the ‘new penology’ thesis and the perspectives of practitioners in this study.

This is not to suggest that all is well within frontline probation work. Although Deering’s findings suggest the new penology thesis is too sweeping to capture the reality of ground level probation practice, he is nevertheless concerned about the ways in which managerialism has impacted on practice. He cites numerous examples which testify to ways in which initiatives supposedly introduced to improve the quality of practice have the opposite effect, including the ‘perverse incentives’ of ‘targets’ and ‘programme fetishization’. He also details the extent to which the practitioners involved in these cases felt overworked and under sustained pressure. They reported that they ‘did not consult with managers over practice issues in terms of the direction and quality of their work, or about how best to approach an individual case’, suggesting that management time is focused on how quality might be represented rather than how it might actually be achieved (Munro, 2004). Significantly, managerial expectations contribute to risk aversion. In the context of this study, this means erring on the side of caution when unsure about how to classify an individual offender’s risk. Rather than regarding this as indicative of actuarial logic, however, Deering’s analysis properly accounts for this by reference to ‘fear of blame’ within overly managerial organizations, in which responsibility for error is not shared but rather blame is allocated to individuals.

Divergence

Though concerned with the same issues, the tenor of these two texts is very different. Both make distinctive claims, and although there is some overlap, there are also notable divergences. Fitzgibbon suggests that the rise of risk has fundamentally altered the nature and ethos of practice in probation and social work. By contrast, Deering suggests that although ‘the new penology’ has had an impact, this has mainly been in the discursive realm. In practice, shifts are much less pronounced. How might we make sense of the different findings of these two books? One avenue is via consideration of the differing methodological approaches of the authors. The basis of Fitzgibbon’s approach is not fully transparent, as there is no discussion of method. All we know is that the author interviewed ‘five probation managers and six probation officers … and two social work managers and three social work practitioners’ (p. 16). There are no details of the nature or purpose of these interviews, the representativeness of the practitioners interviewed, the limits of interviewing as a method of capturing ‘reality’, or the preponderance of perspectives within the data. Quotes are used illuminatingly throughout the text, but the rationale for inclusion appears to be that these are broadly supportive, with no effort to counterpose alternative positions. Additionally, it is unclear what the chapter on ‘media’ actually represents. Drawing heavily on excerpts from press reporting of the cases discussed, it might arguably be represented as a form of documentary analysis. But there is no discussion of how this ‘archive’ was accessed, constructed or excavated, nor how the excerpts selected for inclusion were chosen. On occasion this leads to a sense of a somewhat one-sided portrayal, as in discussion of the portrayal of Sharon Shoesmith (Director of Children’s Services in Haringey) as a ‘bad mother’. I certainly recollect reading at the time numerous news articles which sought to disrupt this dominant narrative, but these are not acknowledged, never mind drawn upon. However convincing a case may be, it is let down when contradictory evidence is disregarded.

In places, Fitzgibbon also enters the realm of counterfactuals, speculating for example on the role that changing social contexts may have played in these cases. In discussing the detail of the Sonnex case, motives for the offence are attributed without much in the way of support:

Although both offenders were high on drugs and obviously wanted money for more drugs their anger and rage was probably compounded because of the nature of the people they were attacking. These foreign students symbolized to them the opportunities and consumer goods that they lacked … in the face of these two successful strangers [Sonnex] saw his own image as flawed consumer. (p. 64)

Later – and even more speculatively – ‘an experienced probation officer equipped with the old casework skills celebrated in the old probation service slogan “advise, assist and befriend” might have found it just possible to get even Dano Sonnex interested in doing something else’ (p. 74). Possibly – and indeed, possibly not.

There are numerous other unsupported suppositions. Cumulatively, they leave the impression that despite its high level theoretical sophistication and evident readability – a difficult balance to achieve – Fitzgibbon’s analysis is speculative rather than grounded. By contrast, Deering’s methodology is specified, and its limitations acknowledged. In essence, his was a case study in which the views and experiences of frontline staff regarding the nature of contemporary practice are interrogated in depth. The study, though relatively small-scale, involved a variety of data sources, including in-depth semi-structured interviews, focus groups, Likert scales and case file analysis. Such methods do not, of course, lend themselves to the generation of definitive answers. Deering therefore acknowledges that even though he triangulates, it is dangerous to assume that data generated in this study necessarily represents a wholly accurate picture of practice, as none of these sources entails direct observation of practice. The picture his study reveals is of ‘practice as reported by practitioners’. He also acknowledges that any study which seeks to compare ‘now’ and ‘then’ is hampered by the lack of uncontested empirical data capturing ‘the reality’ of practice in a different era. Inevitably, then, in a study such as this, incomplete findings will be compared with already existing incomplete knowledge, and so anything other than tentative findings are unlikely. Deering also wonders aloud whether ‘respondents may have been presenting an idealized or skewed version of practice’ (p. 107), a normative rather than an empirical account, and so, despite various strategies to compensate, makes no grand claims for his findings. However, he does highlight a high degree of homogeneity in his findings, across the array of questions, methods and respondents, which suggest that in this setting at least, the need for ‘safety warnings’ may be unwarranted.

My own view is that at base, these conflicting findings reflect the very evident differences which the worldview of the respective authors brings to their interpretation of ‘data’. On the one hand we have Deering taking a broadly (though not uncritical) objective and empiricist position, striving for validity via triangulation and concern for representativeness and attention to the preponderance of positions within the data. On the other, Fitzgibbon appears content to rely on highly subjective interpretations of mainly secondary data, often critical in nature and based on discursive sources which – by definition – are not grounded and so do not challenge this worldview. This leads to a largely polemical analysis which overstates the case and ultimately lacks the capacity to convince.

Convergence

Despite these differences, it is notable that both authors suggest that the problems they both identify in practice might be remedied via the further development and integration of the desistance ‘paradigm’ (McNeill, 2006). This is deemed especially necessary because of the contribution of ‘deficit’ based approaches to risk aversion. Desistance is one of numerous theoretical approaches which have sought to reinvigorate the value of the relationship between practitioner and service user in light of technocratic pressures to depersonalize practice. Practice which shares its assumptions will entail collaborative work which supports offenders. In essence, it is a strengths based psycho-social model which assumes ‘an effective relationship … as a vital precondition for any meaningful interaction between practitioners and individual offenders’ (Deering, p. 84) whilst also recognizing the necessity of enabling offenders to reduce social inequality by enhancing social bonds. It shares the aims and methods of a number of related bodies of work which seek to restate the significance of ‘the social’ in human services practice, including the ‘Good Lives’ model (Ward and Maruna, 2007), ‘constructive’ practice (Parton and O’Byrne, 2000), solution focused and narrative approaches (Myers, 2008; Reissman, 2007) and – as an overarching framework – relationship-based practice (Ruch, 2005; Wilson et al., 2008). Models of relationship-based practice tend to meld ideas and concepts drawn from psycho-analytic thinking and social constructionism with the skills associated with person-centred practice. Each of these traditions has strengths if utilized appropriately, but there are also limitations which proponents of relationship-based approaches rarely acknowledge, and which seem likely to hamper the aims of proponents of relationship-based approaches. In particular, the emphasis on the interpersonal means that practitioners have a tendency to accept at face value the assertion that the purpose of practice concerns the well-being of the individual service user (Philp, 1979). Consequently, there is an attendant tendency to reify service user perspectives ahead of those of other stakeholders, and to slip into partisan practice. These tendencies contribute to the view that social workers and probation officers are ‘on the side’ of the client or offender, a one-sided picture which undermines public legitimacy. There may be situations when this is appropriate, but there are many – particularly when working with involuntary clienteles – when they are not (Hill, 2010). Additionally, as Cullen (2012) points out, they remain – as yet – value driven rather than research-based approaches, with little empirical evidence testifying to their efficacy. Nevertheless, recently, the desistance approach has become influential with probation policymakers, and the introduction of the Offender Engagement Programme has been warmly welcomed by some as heralding a return to ‘traditional’ methods, with increased scope for professional discretion in judgements and decision making. However, there are clearly questions about the extent to which it will address the most pressing issues shared by both practitioners and service users, namely the role that aspects of managerialism plays in promoting risk aversion. As Deering’s study in particular highlights, risk aversion does not necessarily result from actuarial logic, as Fitzgibbon claims, but rather is a function of practitioner discretion in a context in which fear of blame is evident. Unless this blaming tendency within organizations is addressed, neither relationship-based approaches nor enhanced discretion will diminish the pressure for the practitioner to make the ‘right’ decision. Paradoxically, they may well accentuate it (Hood, 2011). A potentially more convincing means of enhancing the quality of decisions and outcomes in practice would be a genuine commitment to ‘skilled interpersonal work’ (Deering, p. 47). But this is a different thing entirely from accepting that the way forward for social work and probation is a return to some mythical ‘golden age’ in which practitioners used unfettered subjective discretion and professional authority as the basis for judgements and decisions. This disregards the widely recognized limits of traditional casework, including the radical critique of individualized practice, the inconsistency inherent within informal, wholly subjective assessment, and the many injustices which have arisen on the basis of clinical approaches to risk assessment (the disproportionate numbers of black service users in secure mental health facilities being a notable example). The chief benefit of ‘science’ (evidence based and actuarial sources of knowledge) is that it offers potential as a means of countering the negative effects of practitioner bias which manifests in well-known inadequacies such as ‘the rule of optimism’ in child welfare (Dingwall et al., 1983) and defensive practice in probation (Nash, 2005). Such benefits cannot be lightly dismissed.

So, although relationship-based practice has its role, in itself it is not likely to achieve the aims of those who most vigorously promote its cause. It is best conceived of as a bare minimum for effective ‘clinical’ practice. It certainly should not be regarded as an ‘artistic’ substitute for ‘scientific’ approaches such as research, evidence or knowledge-based approaches, including actuarialism. As is often the case, there is a degree of intellectual arrogance at play in suggesting any one theory, model or form of knowledge ought to be privileged as all approaches have strengths and limitations depending on the context. The challenge is to integrate ‘art’ and ‘science’ in ways which are appropriate, relevant and useful in particular situations (Evans and Hardy, 2010).

Conclusion

So were theorists of the risk society and new penology wrong? Although Simon (2005) in particular has reversed aspects of his original formulations, the dominant narrative regarding the current state of affairs within social work and probation is a negative one. It is rare for scholars to praise developments within contemporary policy or practice. Instead, ‘scientific’ developments – the use of actuarial tools, the insistence that practice be knowledge rather than authority based – are taken as distancing practice from its ideal, a broadly humanistic form of ‘artistic’ person-centred casework in which expert practitioners have discretion to engage in creative practices which are necessarily highly individualized, reflecting the relationship they have with a particular service user and their unique circumstances and lived experience (England, 1986). They are characterized as ideological impositions, a threat to ‘sacred values in the social sciences’ (Wright and Cullen, 2012: 238). Deering refers to this as ‘a new orthodoxy about the changing nature of the practitioners’ and offenders’ professional relationship’ (p. 101), which may well reflect the significance of ‘criticality’ to academic identity. Where practitioners dissent from this narrative, they are accused of (possibly unknowingly) acquiescing to neoliberal orthodoxy, while evident instances of meaningful and significant work are characterized as principled resistance. This orthodoxy chimes with what Dean (1999) characterizes as ‘the sociology of catastrophe’, an all encompassing insistence that contemporary approaches to government represent a significant and meaningful detrimental departure from what went before. Within social work, the reification of certain ideal models of practice may well play a functional role in the preservation of social work’s identity. But as O’Malley (2004) makes clear, contemporary approaches to governance – including social work and probation – entail complex hybrids of continuity and change. There has been no ‘catastrophic rupture’. Instead, practitioners are involved in processes of engagement and integration with evolving responsibilities which neither require the jettisoning of all that went before nor the acceptance of overly pessimistic interpretations of how practice – and practitioners – will ‘be’. This is a position which, I think, would resonate with Deering’s respondents, but which Fitzgibbon – whose book, incidentally, is one of the most enjoyable academic texts I have read in many years – might find difficult to accept, irrespective of whether or not there is empirical substance to support it.