Values and Functions within the Law

Abstract

In debates about the relationship between social work and the law, the law is presented as a given fact, a clear set of rules of self-evident and unquestionable integrity, which need only to be negotiated with technical skill for helpful solutions to emerge. This chapter challenges this view of the law as firm ground, and likens it more realistically to shifting sand, the reflection of dominant ideologies, attitudes and values which themselves change and develop over time. Ideology shapes and penetrates the law (Alcock and Harris, 1982). Far from being synonymous with justice (Zander, 1974), the law as a paradigm of social relations is influenced by dominant forces which perpetuate injustice (Carlen, 1976) and emerges as a statement of what is rather than of what should be. That statement is written not on tablets of stone but in ‘a malleable plasticine which is kneaded to reflect the political, legal and professional exigencies of the day’ (Harris, 1990a). Most welfare law is the product of complex interactions between social, economic and political factors (Busfield, 1986), thrown into sharp relief by key events, such as the death of a child or vulnerable adult, which crystallise public and political opinion. The uneasy coalitions which result between shared interests produce a semblance of consensus which hides the deeper contradictions and conflicts beneath.