‘Downpressor Man’: securitisation, safeguarding and social work

Article


McKendrick, David and Finch, J. 2017. ‘Downpressor Man’: securitisation, safeguarding and social work. Critical and Radical Social Work. 5 (3), pp. 287-300. https://doi.org/10.1332/204986017X15029697482460
AuthorsMcKendrick, David and Finch, J.
Abstract

The Counter Terrorism and Security Act came into force in July 2015 in the UK. This places a statutory duty on many frontline organisations, i.e schools, social services, and prisons for example, to work within the PREVENT agenda, a policy arising from Britain’s overall counter-terrorism policy, CONTEST. We argue that PREVENT is representative of increasing securitised social policies, that serve to firstly, view people within particular individualised neo-liberal discourses and thin narratives, and, secondly, serves to coerce the profession of social work into hitherto unknown areas, namely, national security and counter-terrorism. We note the unapologetic linkage of traditional forms of what we term here, “welfare safeguarding” customarily the domain of social work, with what we term “security safeguarding”. If the profession of social work in the UK, and we suspect other Western regimes, wishes to avoid becoming a profession of “downpressor men”, the uncritical incursion into issues of national security and counter-terrorism must be highlighted.

JournalCritical and Radical Social Work
Journal citation5 (3), pp. 287-300
ISSN2049-8608
Year2017
PublisherPolicy Press
Accepted author manuscript
License
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1332/204986017X15029697482460
Web address (URL)https://doi.org/10.1332/204986017X15029697482460
Publication dates
Online12 Sep 2017
Print01 Nov 2017
Publication process dates
Deposited20 Sep 2017
Accepted12 Sep 2017
Copyright information© 2017 Policy Press. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copy edited version of an article published in Critical and Radical Social Work. The definitive publisher-authenticated version McKendrick, D. and Finch, J. (2017) “Downpressor Man”: Securitisation, safeguarding and social work, Critical and Radical Social Work is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1332/204986017X15029697482460.
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