Citizen‐agency versus state‐agency at the frontline in prisons and probation services: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Street-level bureaucrats play a key role in the delivery of public services to the citizens with whom they interact. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses approach, we rely on a street-level perspective to report a systematic review of 46 studies about officer-offender interactions in prisons and probation services. In doing so, we examine how correctional officers articulate state-agencywhereby they focus on the implementation of rules and policiesand citizen-agency

Central‐local tensions in the decentralization of social policies: Street‐level bureaucrats and social practices in the Netherlands

“…Mätzke et al, 2017). Street‐level bureaucrats operate in between these two perspectives, which can create significant moral dilemmas (Sabbe, Moyson, & Schiffino, 2021), forcing them to operate as pragmatic agents (Maynard‐Moody & Musheno, 2012). While vertical and horizontal subsidiarity may create tensions between central‐level policy development and local‐level policy translation and implementation, they also create opportunities for local responses and identifying user preferences and priorities at the grass roots level (Yeandle, 2016).…”

“…Originally developed as a normative, evaluative framework (Robeyns, 2005, 2017; Sen, 1992), the CA can help to reveal implicit and explicit normative conceptions in social policies (Goerne, 2010; Kurowska, 2018; Sen, Hanžek, & Javornik, 2002; Yerkes et al, 2019), and, in the case of central‐local tensions, provide a framework for understanding local social policy practices (Yerkes et al, 2019). First, at the street‐level, professionals may not be able to use means (i.e., resources in the form of social policies) following their own professional logic (Sabbe et al, 2021) because from a centralized point of view, policies are intended to function in a specific, standardized way. The CA can help clarify these contexts of policymaking and implementation, the operative local actors, and shed light on potential inequities users face in accessing social policies.…”

Natural born violence? Understanding street‐level bureaucrats' use of violence: Police officers and protests

“…In these cases, encounters are tense because SLBs do not know how citizens will react to them (Maynard‐Moody & Musheno, 2003) or even violently (Davidovitz & Cohen, 2022). Research cites many examples of situations in which citizens react violently against SLBs (Lotta et al, 2021; Robson, Cossar, & Quayle, 2014; Tummers et al, 2015), particularly against probation staff (Sabbe, Moyson, & Schiffino, 2021) and police officers. However, while there are studies of how SLBs react when citizens act violently against them (Davidovitz & Cohen, 2022; Lotta et al, 2021), we lack an understanding of why and when SLBs use violence against citizens and which factors influence the decision to be violent, as well as the interplay between these factors.…”

Social workers as state and citizen-agents. How social workers in a German, Dutch and Flemish public welfare organisation manage this dual responsibility in practice

“…In this process, they navigate between two narratives: the state and citizen-agent narrative (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003). The state-agent narrative focuses on the implementation of rules and policies, while the citizen-agent narrative centres on judgement of identity and worth, and the moral considerations and social and professional norms of social workers (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003; Sabbe et al., 2020; Zacka, 2017).…”

“…Only then it becomes clear how street-level workers make sense of their world and account for what they do. The limited number of studies that address both narratives (Banks, 2013; Dall, 2018; De Corte & Roose, 2018; Hjörne et al., 2010; Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003; Sabbe et al., 2020; Zacka, 2017) show that policy requirements and citizens’ needs can be at odds, creating wicked dilemmas for social workers who then need to find pragmatic ways of making these conflicting narratives meaningful and accountable. We argue that the way social workers take on both narratives in practice constitutes an essential element of their professional accountability, as defined by the ethical standards of social work (International Federation of Social Work, 2018).…”