This volume examines diverse developments in the evolution of public policy institutions for remedying social problems. The collected chapters address the transformation of social problems, social problems work, and social problems solutions in the context of criminal justice, mental health, and community institutions (schools) in contemporary society. These diverse settings and institutions collectively reflect a trend toward the use of various 'treatment' initiatives within formal disciplinary systems and as part of legalistic social control strategies. Although all of the remedial approaches considered are 'new' in the sense of being recent innovations, many are only the most recent in a long sequence of policy initiatives. The contributors to the collection demonstrate that recent transformations in remedial approaches to social problems and the challenges faced by such policy initiatives are as much a function of what has come before as they are of their own inherent features.

This title was first published in 2000. The trend in the public courts and in the private sector toward resolving civil cases through mediation, as opposed to arbitration or trial, seems inescapable. This book documents the emergence of a burgeoning private dispute resolution industry utilizing the services of retired judges, many of whom left the bench early to work as professional mediators.

This title was first published in 2000. The trend in the public courts and in the private sector toward resolving civil cases through mediation, as opposed to arbitration or trial, seems inescapable. This book documents the emergence of a burgeoning private dispute resolution industry utilizing the services of retired judges, many of whom left the bench early to work as professional mediators.

This volume brings together distinguished scholars and cutting-edge experts in the fields of ethnography, law, and social control to present a comprehensive, insightful, and state-of-the-art overview of the everyday work and activities of legal and social control professionals, functionaries, and participants. The chapters in the collection bring to the foreground the distinctive contributions that ethnographic and ethnomethodologically-informed studies have to offer research on law and social control from theoretical, methodological, and substantive viewpoints. The discussions address a usefully broad and timely variety of themes, including management of the media by prosecutors in the famous Mike Tyson rape case; celebrity stalking and its social control; community protection strategies and legislation for high-risk sex offenders; probation officers' use of technology to "monitor" domestic violence offenders; how contemporary immigration rules-in-practice impact the immigration status of skilled professionals; bureaucratic decision-making by federal housing officers; police methods of interrogating suspects through an interpreter; how juvenile courts respond to troublesome youths; Self-change treatment programs for violent offenders in prison; and how jail inmates construct parenthood behind bars. The collection emphasizes the need to consider the organizationally and institutionally specific features and competencies that comprise the legal and social control work under investigation and allows for a deeper appreciation of the practical terms through which people involved in this work make their activities meaningful, carry out their tasks, and organize their interactions.