Bringing Together Messages from the Literature on Criminal Justice Social Work and 'Disjuncture': The Importance of 'Helping'

This paper considers messages from the literature on developments in Scottish criminal justice social work (CJSW), with a particular focus on the changing position and importance of social workers' helping/welfare work. Attention is then given to the literature on ‘disjuncture’—a term used to define ethical stress experienced when one's value beliefs and behaviour are in conflict—again with a focus on ‘helping’. The paper then synthesises these bodies of literature, asking whether there is still a place for criminal justice social workers to ‘help’ offenders, and the impact that the answer to this might have on workers' feelings of ‘disjuncture’. Initial exploration of this question provides a clear rationale for further research.