In these ways, street level bureaucrats cope with their dilemma of having substantial discretion but it is in service of trying to meet demands for service way beyond what they can provide. Lipsky adds what is possibly the most controversial part of his thesis and that is that the coping practices of street level bureaucrats designed to enable them to manage the impossible situation in which they find themselves end up becoming the de facto policies of their agencies. What they do in order to cope with their situation ends up becoming the policy for serving their clients . Therefore, to make it even more controversial this is to say that policy gets made from the bottom up with these coping practices over time being the operative policy of the agency and the formal policies of the agency are shoehorned into these coping practices. As was pointed out in class, caseload ends up determining policy.
Clients have to adapt to how street level bureaucrats are adapting .
Now we are getting closer to how the last several weeks fit with this week. Secondary deviance sets in, perverse effects become common, people rearrange their affairs and reposition themselves to be seen as the people who qualify as clients, who have the worst problems, who are willing to do what the agency wants even if it does not really help them, to fit in and as a result everything gets turned upside down again in another respect. Clients are defined as having problems, often in terms of being a deviant, in good part by how bureaucracy s treat them. While a client may have many characteristics, cases only have some. Clients need to do certain things and exhibit certain characteristics if they are to be recognized by the bureaucracy as being in need.