Inside tbe System
release schemes, simply use a crude points system which guarantees
acceptance on to the programme to those who score best
on length of residence in one place and employment record. This,
presumably, goes according to the old principle of giving more to
those that have more.
Of course, as the statistics indicate, some bad risks (the 'real'
target clients) do get in. Certain programmes do give the offender
a genuine choice about entry and there is pressure to make the
programme look impressive by really rescuing offenders from the
deep end. In these cases, some of the old losers - who probably
prefer anything to returning to the traditional system - will enter
the programme.1S But too many of them will make the programme
look bad and lead to pressure for a clamp down. If there is little
room for such self-selection (the normal state of affairs) then only
the shallow-enders will be let in'- those who will make the programme
less risky. This process repeats itself at all the increasing
stages in the system: each level creaming off the clients it wants
- those who are amenable, treatable, easy to work with, the good
prospects. The rest are 'diverted' to the next level up.
All this ensures a steady clientele. And the more benign, attractive
and successful the programme becomes defined, the more it
will be used, the more staff and budgets will be needed and the
wider it will cast its net (nearly everyone could do with a little
'help'). Police will divert because this is less risky than outright
release and much less trouble than fighting the case through the
courts (especially as the courts become more legalistic and therefore
make it difficult to secure a conviction). Judges are attracted
to the new programmes because this avoids unnecessary incarceration,
while at the same time ensuring that 'something constructive'
is done.
To use yet another metaphor (fishing nets? objects in space?),
we have here a benevolent kind of suction machine, driven by the
principle of incremental eligibility. Each stage retains its own
eligible material, leaving another body - in a deeper or shallower
part of the system - to operate its own eligibiliry criteria. Of
course things might not always run so smoothly. Agencies within
the criminal justice system might compete over the same potential
clientele, or clients might be tracked and retracked between crime,
welfare and psychiatric systems. These moves in the game of relabelling
and moral passage then might be formalized in administrative
or legal changes.
A typical example would be status offenders. They can be
relabelled 'downwards' as being in need of care, treatment or