The Downside of Regulation and the Opportunities for Public Engagement about the Care and Protection of Children

In this response I embrace the theoretical challenges presented by Braithwaite, Harris and Ivec in their depiction of child protection as a series of regulatory processes and in so doing acknowledge that there are numerous problems that have become apparent as child protection regulatory frameworks have expanded and consolidated worldwide. I argue that urgent review of the regulatory systems of child protection is indeed required and that this could well be undertaken using the concept of 'responsive regulation'. Finally, I suggest that such an analysis could usefully accommodate contemporary stakeholder views and research on the paradigms, assumptions, processes and outcomes associated with contemporary child protection practices.