In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Part III. Normative Decision Making: Moralities over Legalities Street-level decision making is complexly moral and contingent rather than narrowly rule bound and ‹xed. A fundamental dilemma—perhaps the de‹ning characteristic—of street-level work is that the needs of individual citizen-clients exist in tension with the demands and limits of rules. This does not mean that rules do not permeate all aspects of street-level work (they do) or that most street-level actions are not consistent with law and policy (they are). The most common situation may be that the rules effectively ‹t the complexity of workers’ judgments about citizen-clients. When the rules and standard procedures ‹t the situation, street-level work is not problematic—there is no con›ict, no dilemma, and, not incidentally, no story. As discussed in chapter 3, stories are inspired by and help storytellers and listeners deal with ambiguous and con›ictual situations, not routine events. Thus, the fundamental tension that drives many street-level work stories is the con›ict between the needs and character—the identity— of the citizen-clients as de‹ned by street-level workers and the demands of rules, procedures, and laws as understood by street-level workers. To deal with this tension, street-level workers focus on their judgments about individual citizen-clients. As discussed in chapter 2, the issues of discretion, control, and accountability that have so dominated the literature on public organizations rarely appear in our stories. These issues are not prominent for street-level workers. Rather, their moral judgments about citizen-clients are made in the context of face-to-face relationships that enacts the identity of both worker and citizen. Rules, procedures, and laws are put into play to enforce these judgments. Moral judgments about citizen-clients infuse all aspects of streetlevel decision making. To street-level workers, fairness has little to do 93 with the bureaucratic norm of treating everyone the same or even fairly implementing laws and regulations. To our storytellers, fairness and justice mean responding to citizen-clients based on their perceived worth. More than enforcers of law, street-level workers—in our study, cops, teachers, and vocational rehabilitation counselors—are producers of values and character that embody mainstream notions of moral worth and productive membership in society. At ‹rst glance, these observations reinforce the negative portrait of out-of-control workers, but the stories offer a more complex, multidimensional—and more hopeful—portrait of street-level judgment. Street-level workers do not see citizen-clients as abstractions—“the disabled,” “the poor,” “the criminal”—but as individuals with ›aws and strengths who rarely fall within the one-size-‹ts-all approach of policies and laws. What, then, are the dimensions of worthiness and unworthiness that street-level workers reveal in the stories? And how do street-level workers treat citizen-clients after making judgments about their moral worthiness ? We turn to these issues in the next four chapters. It is important to underscore that the various dimensions of worthiness and unworthiness that emerge from these stories are not discrete. They bleed and blend into each other, just as the world of street-level work is not one of simple categories and hard-and-fast rules and de‹nitions. In general, street-level workers respond to citizen-clients in one of four ways or a mixture of them. The ‹rst is normal, routine, bureaucratic treatment. Teachers follow the rules and curricula. Voc rehab counselors follow standard diagnostic, service, and case-closure procedures . Police of‹cers enforce the law and go by the book. In most cases, normal treatment is good treatment. Although in the narrow quantitative sense, normal treatment may be the most prevalent, it is not problematic for the street-level worker. No one tells stories about following rules, bureaucratic response, and standard treatment, although many stories begin in this manner and then shift to another mode of response. Street-level workers in all settings tell stories about extraordinary services given to those deemed worthy, the second mode of response. Identifying the worthy citizen-clients is a complex, multidimensional judgment and the subject of chapter 8. How police, teachers, and counselors respond to the worthy is taken up in chapter 9. The powerful bond between worker and citizen-client that characterizes these stories of extraordinary care and involvement is not always present, however. Street-level workers’ responses are often dominated by what is practical or possible rather than what is desirable Cops, Teachers, Counselors 94 [3.133...

Share