Practitioners systematically blame clients to protect themselves from institutional failure.

Evidence

There are many examples of blaming the victim. Chronically unemployed men are described as shiftless and unwilling to work when their situations might be attributed to the structure of employment and previous job availability. Students’ learning difficulties are explained by focusing on their lack of motivation rather than on the skills of the teachers and the atmosphere of the school. Blaming clients for failing to keep appointments protects street-level bureaucrats from the possibility that prior interviews have discouraged or alienated them. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1127

Categorization

• SEED: Could anchor an essay on how quotidian folk explanations inside agencies harden into institutional knowledge faster than any formal policy document.
• XREF: connects to: Industries deflect blame for harm onto victims’ personal deficiencies — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1824; Frontline workers adopt rigid client-blaming views to resolve work contradictions — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1136

Broader Connections

• Industries deflect blame for harm onto victims’ personal deficiencies #corroborates (0.95) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1824
• Frontline workers adopt rigid client-blaming views to resolve work contradictions #expands (0.95) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1136