This book locates the issue of -vulnerability- in an international context, within public-sector reform processes, and goes beyond the conceptualization of existing concepts of policing and vulnerability to include multi- and intra-agency working. It uncovers many competing and contradictory conceptualisations of the phenomenon and shows how a variety of agencies in different jurisdictions prioritise and operationalise this escalating 21st-century social problem.
Two recurring themes of this edited collection are the ways in which non-state organisations and agencies have become an acknowledged feature of modern service delivery, and how the withdrawal of the state has heralded a perceptive shift from collective or community provision towards the stigmatization of individuals. Increasingly, public service professionals and -street level bureaucrats- work in collaboration with non-state agents to attempt to ameliorate vulnerability. Chapter contributions were deliberately drawn
