Peter Simpson

Reviews : Social Work Management and Practice: Systems Principles Andy Bilson and Sue Ross (eds) Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1999; ppl88; £15.95, pbk

To those of us who, like me, did their training in the early 1970s, Pincus and Minahan were the dawn of a new era, which would allow social work to escape from the straight jacketed Freudian individual pathologising of psychotherapeutic approaches. Somehow systems theories never fundamentally changed social work thought and practice, although as this book usefully reminds us a number of influential areas

Reviews : Punishment Under Pressure: The Probation Service in the Inner City Bob Broad Jessica King, 1991; pp. 238; £25 hbk

bizarre, from SMASH (Sudden Mass Assault Syndrome with Homicide) to demonic possession, is more appetiser than the full five courses no space for klismaphilia (sexual gratification by having an enema) but this weave of anthropology, literature, psychoanalytic insight and clinical psychiatry is far more useful than simply a prurient glimpse into Professor Prins’ House of Horrors or a handy text 16 readiness for when you find a Dennis Nilsen or Michael Ryan on your caseload. This excursion into the extremes of morbidity in human nature reminds us that these are extensions of universal darker forces, distinguished only by intensity and severity from the phantasies, instincts, jealousies and limits of self control within us all.

Reviews : Enquiries into Community Probation Work: BOB BROAD (ED) Cranfield Press, 1988; £4.95; pb; pp 76

You’ve watched the TV series; now read the book. Women criminals do still commit financial offences for gain, out of need, because they’re desperate and can’t make ends meet. This book goes on to describe other motives for female crime. Women offend for kicks, out of anger, because they know they can. Beating the system becomes possible, then profitable, then boring and all the time authority thought you had settled for the limitations of the role which it had offered you. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you_ Barney Bardsley’s attempt to understand female criminality seems to agree with the immortal Mae West’s assertive and sexual challenge ’When I’m good, I’m very very good but when I’m bad, I’m better’. The book throws open a window on the gloom of assumption and prejudice and lets in air and light. Simply written and easy to read, drawing on autobiographical material, this is a concise and satis-

Reviews : Police Powers and Politics ROBERT BALDWIN AND RICHARD KINSEY Quartet Books; 1981, p.p. 310, h.b; £9.95

Two hostels opening within a few months of each other in the same Probation area, one committed to an ideal of residents taking responsibility for developing rules, in a tolerant, permissive atmosphere, the other adopting the authoritarian, total institution model of American-inspired drug treatment regimes, provided a ready-made research project for two authors with an interest in evaluating probation hostels. However, what began as a worthy but potentially dry piece of research was transformed by events into a dramatic narrative of the breakdown of one institution and eventual closure of the other. This book contams a wealth of material of vital interest to anyone associated with hostels. Issues raised include that of ‘charismatic’ leadership and its effects, structure and responsibility, authority and rules; relationships with the local community and the local probation service; attitudes of residents to the regimes, and perhaps most intriguing, the effect of Home Office policy on the development and variety of hostels in the 1970’s. The problem for both hostels was the creation of a ‘healing’ culture acceptable to both residents and staff. Both institutions failed to achieve this. In hindsight it can be seen that one institution failed

Reviews : Down the Road: Unemployment and the Fight for the Right to Work SARAH COX AND ROBERT GOLDEN Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative 1977; £1.95; pb; pp 126

Last year’s disturbances in Britain’s inner cities brought law and order back into the centre of the political arena. The reaction of the Right was predictable; renewed emphasis on parents’ moral responsibility, swift justice, deterrent sentences and a hunt for subversive ringleaders. Long before the summer of 1981 Ian Taylor was questioning the glib liberalism of 1960’s radical criminology. In his view socialists can no longer be agnostic with regard to criminal politics, when confronted with the demands of working people (white and black), women’s organisations and entire communities for adequate protection. In this book Taylor considers the ’mistaken realism’ of right-wing criminology; examines the strengths and limitations of post-war social democracy; and concludes that socialists must develop an alternative strategy with popular policies on prison, the police, law enforcement and women and the law. The events of last summer have made his arguments all the mnre iirgent-

Reviews : Probation and After Care in Multi-Racial Society COMPILED BY WENDY TAYLOR A report published jointly by the Commission for Racial Equality and The West Midlands County Probation and After Care Service £2.00 pb; pp 135

ever, Wendy Taylor, who was appointed ethnic adviser to the WMPACS, reminds us that we must constantly take into account not only prejudice and discrimination but also ’attitudes which affect the provision of services to ethnic minorities’. This report sets out to do just that, and, as the CPO says in the introduction, it ’identifies real concern about the position of black people in society, focussing particularly upon those who come into contact with the Probation Service’. The West Midlands is the first area publicly to examine the work of the Probation Service in this context, and despite the potential difficulties and controversies, can leave us in no doubt that racial understanding is not simply a question for others. The report presents statistical information on the work of the service, and while acknowledging reservations about interpreting the findings, does state that there is statistically significant under-representation of black clients on probation, and over-representation of black clients on licence. When this is combined with research (by Pat Whitehouse SPO) which shows that proportionately more blacks than whites are arrested, that fewer blacks are referred for SIR’s and that blacks are more likely to be convicted and more likely to receive