Dealing with the ‘Irredeemable’: Negotiating the Failings of Reform

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to detail what has been termed the ‘failings’ — individuals who have not improved their behaviour as a consequence of interventions designed to divert them from the criminal justice system. This includes persons described as ‘unsuited’ to various reformative programmes because of particular conditions or circumstances (such as mental health issues or addictions), or those who have passed through the caseloads of a number of different agencies over time and yet continue to be involved in various forms of anti-social behaviour (ASB). The ‘failings’ has another component separate from the onus on the individual client, related to the ways professionals classify certain cases and persons and negotiate their own personal roles in reforming, supporting or helping clients. This includes the ways professionals encounter these daily realities in order to ‘make sense of’, ‘feel at ease with’, or ‘explain away’ the failure of their own personal involvement in cases.