Abstract
The notion of the Big Society masks an attack on the poor, and a political clash between resource-starved practitioners who want to offer effective help and a neo-liberal coalition government wedded to the minimal state is inevitable. So concludes Wendy Fitzgibbon in this absorbing and challenging book. With a feel for the subject that can only derive from experience of practice, she traces the political, social and cultural history that has led to this state of affairs. In order to illustrate the accumulating problems facing the Child Protection and Probation Agencies, she begins with the horrific murders of the French students, Gabriel Ferez and Laurent Bonomo, and Baby P, and the ensuing furore that led to the assisted resignation of David Scott, Chief of London Probation and the dismissal of Sharon Shoesmith, Head of Children’s Services Haringey. She makes a comparison with the response to the equally horrific killing of Maria Colwell and the case of the poisoner, Graham Young in the 1970s; and, without falling into the golden age trap, exemplifies the difference in the social and political climates.
The essence of the book is founded on three themes, namely: the extent and development of the problem; the challenge of minimizing recurrence; and the impact of social and political change on the work of both agencies. These, coupled with extracts from interviews with a small number of social work and probation managers and practitioners, are woven into the following five chapters. Chapter 2 sets out to examine changes in attitudes, the relationship between media and public and media and politics, and the opinion forming capacity of media. Chapter 3 provides an understanding of the different circumstances in which the killings took place by examining the changes in the structure of poor communities and their increased fragmentation. Chapter 4 traces the shift from welfare to security via the different concerns and foci of politicians and the relevant inquiries. Chapter 5 describes the sinking of practice into a mire of lessened face-to-face contact, higher caseloads, increased bureaucracy, and tick-box risk agenda, and by reference to cases in other countries establishes that it need not be so. The concluding chapter, whilst acknowledging positive developments such as the reduction in registration of children and Ken Clarke’s professed aim of freeing probation from the target culture, catalogues the depressing reality of the situation in which poor people live and the uphill struggle of the social workers and probation officers who are trying to help.
It is, of course, impossible to do justice to the full content and nuances of a book in a review, so instead I shall highlight some selective themes and arguments. However, before doing so, let’s get the nit-picking out of the way. The acknowledged limitation of focusing on newspapers in the age of multi-media is a little understated; at times series of quotes from practitioners are used without commentary or introduction; and the historical analysis of communities and child abuse in Chapter 3 might have been given more depth by reference to the work of Smart (1999, 2000). None of these things, however, undermine the discursive and analytical quality of the book.
Wendy Fitzgibbon provides a tellingly clear description of how the nature of media focus on dramatic crimes has changed and the something can be done optimism of politicians has transmuted into macho, media aware posturing, and how the two are linked. She shows how the social glue of community has been diluted to such an extent that the point may have been reached whereby the ‘reality of community is only achieved through a mass hysteria’ (p. 57); and how the crumbling of traditional networks within which practitioners operated has changed the type of knowledge they have of those they hope to help. Skilfully, she exposes how a particular political construction of public protection has heightened demand for more control, accelerated deskilling and the decline of professional status, accorded disproportionate power to media, and led to political denial of the impact of reduced resources. Finally, amidst numerous, relevant and well-worked arguments, she paints a vivid picture of how risk agenda have deconstructed the recipients of help into ‘a data base of risk scores’ (p. 142) and how risk scores exist in isolation and detachment from genuine, committed relationships.
In a sense, the core message of the book – that risk is likely to be reduced, that tragic deaths have a greater chance of being averted, and that people are more likely to be helped to be constructive citizens by in-depth, face-to-face contact with skilled, committed practitioners with sufficient time and resources – is stating the obvious. Nevertheless, all of us who are interested in considered, person-centred responses to the complex problems faced by individuals and communities should thank Wendy Fitzgibbon for stating it in such a sensitive, persuasive and eloquent fashion.