Frontline workers teach clients to expect few services, dampening demand in advance

Evidence

At the individual level street-level bureaucrats often convey to clients that they should expect few services. Teachers’ tracking of students, even when done informally, precisely conveys to students that they are not expected to learn a great deal. Police directly inform citizens that they cannot expect much action on recovering stolen property. Welfare clients are told by social workers that there is nothing that can be done to increase their benefits. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 487

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Service availability creates demand rather than merely satisfying it — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 292; Client deference is a pervasive precondition of frontline service delivery — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 269; Frontline workers control clients by structuring interactions before behavior emerges — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 465 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Sustained agency contact teaches poor clients they are undeserving #expands (0.85)
• Social ideology of responsive service and cynicism about red tape jointly shape client expectations #qualifies (0.75) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 486