'Sinbin' solutions

Abstract

The 'problem family' has been re-excavated by New Labour and located at the centre of the drive against 'anti-social behaviour'. Associated with this is a plan, announced at the launch of the Respect Action Plan, to put in place a network of 'intensive family support' schemes: the so-called 'sinbins'. It is maintained that this is a retrogressive development and needs to be viewed in the context of debates that took place on the 'problem family', in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, in the past. Examining research reports that 'evaluate' the existing 'sinbins' it is argued that these are lacking in reflexive hesitancy and insufficiently critical. It is also suggested that social policy researchers, frequently funded by government grants when investigating 'social problems', need to retain a certain wariness and scepticism before providing research 'products' which seem to largely endorse the policy and practice 'solutions' that the State, committed to the maintenance of social order, has formulated.

Confronting neoliberal penality: Placing prison reform and critical criminology at the core of social work's social justice agenda

“…Subsequently, a number of other criminologists, political economists and social policy analysts have heeded Wacquant's analysis and noted that a 'new punitiveness' is central to neoliberalism's mode of social regulation (Pratt, Brown, Brown, Hallsworth, & Morrison, 2005). This can be associated with the tendency to locate particular sections of the population (those regarded as ambiguously 'troublesome' or ambiguously out of place) within enclosures which may not in the ordinary sense of the word be 'prisons' but which remain zones of varying degrees of confinement and supervision (Garrett, 2007).…”

“…First, the increase in the recourse to imprisonment across various jurisdictions is likely to directly impact on a range of interventions in social work with children and families (Cnaan, Draine, Frazier, & Sinha, 2008;Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT), 2012a;Sheehan, 2011). Second, the inflation in prisoner numbers and the tonality of policy making associated with this development may infuse the modalities of social work: for example, an increased emphasis on the surveillance of clients and the initiation of patterns of quasi confinement (Garrett, 2007). Three, the value base of the profession and its commitment to the promotion of social justice might prompt social workers to become more intent on campaigning for a less frequent use of prison and better conditions for prisoners (Hare, 2004).…”

Between “Families in Trouble” and “Children at Risk”: Historicising “Troubled Family” Policy in England since 1945

“…However, FIPs emerged as a response to, rather than originating from, professional social work concerns as with ‘problem families’. Despite marked similarity with ideas, policies and practices around ‘problem families’, there was no direct lineage (Garrett, ; Macnicol, ; Parr, ). In essence, ‘troubled families’ were a problem of neoliberal statecraft developed from the centre to the locality about resources and state intervention in the lives of poor families (Crossley, 2016a).…”

The English City Riots of 2011, ‘Broken Britain’ and the Retreat into the Present

“…We begin by summarising contemporary discourses about ‘Broken Britain’ and the evidence for this and then provide an account of Elias’ relevant theories. We continue by presenting three key arguments: firstly that a ‘retreat into the present’ by both policy discourse and social science (see Cole, 2001; Garrett, 2007) fails to recognise that perceived crises of civilisation are ubiquitous to the urban condition; secondly that particular moral panics have always arisen, specifically focused upon young and working class populations and urban disorder; and, thirdly, that previous techniques of governance to control these populations were often far more similar to contemporary mechanisms than commentaries suggest. We conclude that, although history is often invoked in contemporary discourses about social crisis, both policy makers and social scientists should develop a fuller understanding of the historical sociological consequences of urban change and the governmental and policing techniques used to regulate them.…”