They have their job, we have ours: Reassessing the feasibility of police‐social work cooperation

Abstract

Seduced by the symbolic content of the coordination message, many senior administrators, social planners, and politicians advocate that the police and social work should work closer together. Examination of the critical properties of these occupations and of joint police‐social work programmes reveals, however, that the differences between them far outweigh their similarities. Moreover, these differences are not casual, but located in the culture and structure of each occupation, and in the structure of society as a whole. This analysis leads to the conclusion that proposed suggestions to better police‐social work relationships are unfeasible, and that it would be preferable if each occupation would simply fulfil its societal role on its own.