Records written defensively cannot support after-the-fact accountability audits.

Evidence

For this reason, the records kept by street-level bureaucrats are almost never complete or adequate to the task of post hoc auditing, and when records are kept, they are written sketchily and defensively to guard against later adverse scrutiny. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1180

Categorization

• DEFINE: Specifies what ‘institutionalization’ looks like at street level: sketchy, defensive paperwork that forecloses later scrutiny.
• SEED: Article angle: the defensive case note as a genre — paperwork engineered to be un-auditable.