Frontline workers penalize clients who disrupt their preferred procedures.

Evidence

Legal services lawyers, for example, have been observed to discourage clients from raising questions and penalizing those who refuse to follow the preferred procedures. Similarly, welfare workers have been observed to disfavor clients who do not permit them to conduct interviews according to standard formats. These and other examples of rigid adherence to procedure suggest the significance for workers of pursuing means instead of ends. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1103

Categorization

• XREF: Evidence for the reader’s thesis that routine adherence, not stated policy, reproduces differential treatment. — connects to: Bureaucracies chronically underfund worker advocacy for clients, then punish contesting clients — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 547; Frontline workers punish procedural slights rather than service-relevant failures — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 907; Frontline agencies award scarce resources to clients who threaten disruption. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1029