Policeman or friend Dilemmas in working with homeless young people article provided - Term Paper Example

al Affiliation: Policeman or friend? Dilemmas in working with homeless young people This dilemma is staged in a hostel that houses homeless young people in the United Kingdom. It is qualitative in nature because it gives detailed facts and figures on events that lead to the dilemma and the report consequently establishes the phenomenon behind the dilemma. The main issue in the spotlight is the relationship between staff employed at the hostels and the residents who are the homeless youths. To establish the qualitative and quantitative aspect of the report, a semi-structured interview was conducted on twelve residents and ten key workers at the hostel facility.

The main questions under consideration were the relationship between the inhabitants of the hostels and hostel staff. Critical analysis of the qualitative data collected revealed that there are three defining features of the dilemma which are; support versus enforcement of law, distance versus emotional involvement and thirdly, staff centered practices versus resident centered practices (McGrath & Pistrang, 2007, p 589). All this findings are critical in highlighting dilemmas and tensions as portrayed from the staff and residents point of view.

The end result is that resolving the dilemma could go a long way into pointing at effective ways of dealing with homeless and disillusioned youths. In every society, the police have double roles to play; both as a peacekeeper and as a regulation law enforcer. This two qualities interplay with each other to make the police have admirable personalities with the ability of being friends and heroes. Children also emulate these characteristics and want to grow up being peacekeepers because peacekeepers don’t have to be busy, the mere sight of uniform call for order.

Keeping in mind that the police also undertake responsibilities of enforcing security at residential places, a conflict of interest emerges. The author of the article identifies the prisoner’s dilemma theory as a supportive report that ascertains their impartial judgment. The author also mentions about the police or friend dilemma using references from the dilemmas experienced in working with homeless young people. Several dilemmas emerge since just like the police, the people assigned the role of peacekeeping are often forced by circumstances to perform some duties beyond them.

These attributive duties are not defined by their employers but at times it is out of pity or goodwill. The author identifies an example of where the policeman or friend has been applied before for instance the same theory has been applied by the key workers at the hostels in containing and helping homeless youths in United Kingdoms. It is evident that most countries in the world are facing housing problems. These problems have been majorly blamed on drastic population growth which results on a strain in the social amenities and economic resources in a given country.

It was assumed that the developing countries are hard hit by housing shortages but the tides have turned against some developing countries. As a psychologist, it is worth knowing that being homeless is very undesirable especially among the youths and it is often a leading cause of trauma. In addition to being homeless, youths desire some standard of live that is desirable and comforting. Failure to achieve these primary goals leaves them disillusioned and the end result could be trauma. At the face of such youths, people in authority often come in handy to help even if they are not responsible for such conduct and this explains the essence of the policeman or friend dilemma.

In so doing, the author uses a research report to post hypothesis and prepositions. Among the shortcoming of the dilemma theory is that the author fails to define independent and dependent variables and how they are related ReferenceMcGrath. & Pistrang, N. (2007). Policeman or friend? Dilemmas in working with homeless young people in the United Kingdom. Journal of Social Issues, 63(3), 589-606. http://ezp.waldenlibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&AN=2007-12598-007&site=ehost-live&scope=site