Can Prosecutors be Social Workers?

• Date: 10 April 2007
• Published date: 10 April 2007
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1059-4337(06)40005-3
• Pages: 125-151
• Author: Kay L. Levine

CAN PROSECUTORS BE

SOCIAL WORKERS?

Kay L. Levine

ABSTRACT

How do prosecutors behave when the state puts them in charge of solving

social problems? Drawing on interviews with prosecutors in California,

this article investigates the degree to which problem-oriented strategies

can transform the conventional prosecutorial role. The data show that

problem-oriented prosecutors regard themselves as more responsive to the

communities they serve and more inclined to develop creative and broad-

ranging strategies to manage deviance within these communities. But

there are significant limitations to the social worker role embedded in the

problem orientation. First, problem-solving approaches are most com-

patible with chronic, low-level criminal offenses that hold little profes-

sional allure for prosecutors, who therefore have little incentive (at least

in traditional professional terms) to devote time and energy to solving

them. Second, the problem-oriented model produces among prosecutors a

challenging role conflict, as the skills required for effective, creative

problem-solving contrast sharply with those traits that traditionally define

a good prosecutor. If problem-solving strategies are to effectively take

hold, therefore, the prosecutorial role must be reconceptualized and the

institution of prosecution reconstituted to accommodate a wider range of

attitudes and actions.

Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Volume 40, 125–151

Copyright r2007 by Elsevier Ltd.

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved

ISSN: 1059-4337/doi:10.1016/S1059-4337(06)40005-3

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INTRODUCTION

How do prosecutors respond when subject to a state-engineered program

that allocates criminal justice resources to combat social problems? When

faced with a task of this magnitude, can prosecutors become more than

simply advocates in an adversary system, or will their current set of skills,

attitudes, and institutional constraints keep them from fully embracing a

broader role? This article attempts to answer these questions by examining

empirical evidence from California’s Statutory Rape Vertical Prosecution

Program, a wide-ranging problem-oriented prosecution effort directed at

ameliorating a slate of problems caused by adolescent sexuality.

Problem-oriented criminal justice approaches challenge law enforcement

personnel to abandon their traditional reactive orientations in favor of

proactive efforts to solve social problems that underlie low-level criminal

behavior (McElroy, Cosgrove, & Sadd, 1993, pp. 54–55). In the past decade,

a handful of prosecutorial programs for drug interdiction and rehabilitation

have adopted a modified problem orientation, and some localities have es-

tablished community prosecution offices to keep local prosecutors in better

touch with the needs of their respective communities, to encourage pros-

ecutors to expand their professional objectives beyond conviction and sen-

tencing of defendants, and to prioritize the reduction of crime as a principal

goal (Coles & Kelling, 1998, 1999;Forst, 2000).

California has developed a form of problem-oriented prosecution that goes

well beyond the ‘‘community prosecution work’’ or crime reduction strategies

identified by other scholars. The Statutory Rape Vertical Prosecution Program

(SRVPP), formed in 1995 as one component of a campaign to reduce preg-

nancy and welfare dependency among teenagers, has charged California’s

prosecutors with solving social problems that bear only a marginal relationship

to crime prevention and reduction. Prosecutors do not merely file statutory

rape cases and witness the benefits from afar; they also counsel victims and

their families and conduct outreach in schools, at county fairs, and with health

professionals to bring the issue of teenage pregnancy and sexual abstinence to

the forefront of the public agenda. They are armed with pencils warning ‘‘Sex

Can Wait!’’ and display posters and videotapes warning against inappropriate

relationships and the consequences of early childbearing. The SRVPP pros-

ecutor is a new hybrid of advocate, bureaucrat, social worker, and politician.

Yet the empirical data collected here suggest that the institution of pros-

ecution may be highly resistant to the changes that the problem-solving

approach requires. Problem-solving approaches are most compatible with

chronic, low-level criminal offenses that hold little professional allure for

prosecutors, who therefore have little incentive (at least in traditional

KAY L. LEVINE126