Chapter Seven - The Punitive Turn in Public Services: Coercing Responsibility

Summary

Introduction: Responsibilization and Coercion

So far, we have been considering the way in which new developments in the organization of civil society and the delivery of public services have fostered new kinds of consciousness and new conceptions of the citizen. In this chapter, we will consider some aspects of what Garland (2001) has termed the ‘new punitiveness’ and examine the implications of this for the development of responsibility and responsibilization. The implication that the individual, if not deemed responsible, trustworthy or reassuring, will be subject to punitive sanction underlies a great many policies, items of legislation and a range of civil orders such as Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) which may be applied to the recalcitrant citizen. In addition, with a vigorous programme of new legislation, the previous New Labour government introduced a variety of novel ways in which civil and criminal sanction could be applied to the populace. Moreover, as we shall explore through the issue of housing, a range of new actors have been enlisted in the quest to encourage and enforce responsibility in different civil spheres. Once again, the process is coercive as well as facilitative, because failures to meet the requirements placed upon the individual may result in eviction or ineligibility for a new tenancy. The culture of audit, inspection and sanction has been applied not only to individual clients or service users, but to practitioners and professionals in a variety of public service roles.