Evaluating child homicide inquests as a learning process: A social constructionist analysis of a Canadian experience

Abstract

The death of a child who is known to protection agencies is perhaps the gravest critical incident affecting child welfare today. The media coverage that these tragedies receive has fuelled public demand for solutions to this social problem. In response, several countries have conducted judicial or public investigations into child homicide deaths. However, there has been very little critical analysis of these proceedings as a learning or problem-solving process. This paper suggests that a social constructionist understanding of organizations as cultures provides a useful perspective from which to conduct an inquest into the inquest process itself. This framework is applied to a Coroner's inquest held in Ontario, Canada, in 1997. Under such an analysis, the inquest proceedings are seen to be a “storying of experience”, not an impartial and comprehensive exploration of the facts. It is argued that the interpretation of the child abuse death was limited by a bureaucratic orientation. While this orientation did result in a number of promising solutions, the solutions that were emphasized tended to be those which reflected the paradigms, practices and needs of the dominant stakeholders in these proceedings. The potential dangers of several of the resulting recommendations are considered. An acknowledgement of the subjectivity inherent in current inquests, coupled with a deliberate effort to integrate insights from other paradigms and perspectives would be a critical first step toward improving our understanding of how to prevent child homicide deaths. The paper ends with several recommendations.