Defund the Police: Moving Towards an Anti-Carceral Social Work

Jacobs, Leah A.; Kim, Mimi E.; Whitfield, Darren L.; Gartner, Rachel E.; Panichelli, Meg; Kattari, Shanna K.; Downey, Margaret Mary; McQueen, Shanté Stuart; Mountz, Sarah

doi:10.1080/10428232.2020.1852865

Cited by 105 publications

(101 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Divesting from antiblackness in social work also requires divesting from police-social work collaborative models and carceral social work practices. Jacobs et al (2021), define carceral social work "as a form of social work that relies on logics of White supremacy and that uses coercive and punitive practices to manage BIPOC and poor communities" (p. 39). Carceral social work includes direct partnership with police, but also implicates the profession in the myriad of "tactics dependent on the same White supremacist and coercive foundations as policing" (Jacobs et al, 2021, p. 39).…”

Section: Resisting Carcerality In Social Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social Work in the Shadow of Death

Stevenson

Blakey

2021

ASW

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In its current form, the field of social work does not reflect the ongoing reality of Black death and the embeddedness of anti-Blackness in everyday life. This omission leads to catastrophic failures of the profession’s most essential tasks: the advancement of social justice and future social workers’ education. This paper will discuss why the police’s ongoing murder of Black people will not be resolved by simply replacing the police with social workers. We will argue that social workers serving Black people must anchor their work in theoretical perspectives articulated by Black people. Finally, we challenge social work to live up to its social justice mission by divesting from systems of social control and anchoring their work in theoretical perspectives articulated by Black people.

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Section: Resisting Carcerality In Social Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The social work profession is complicit in paternalistic practices of oversight, regulation, and punishment of Black populations in ways that mimic and work in unison with law enforcement (Jacobs et al, 2021). Police and policing have no place in a profession that espouses a commitment to social justice.…”

Section: Resisting Carcerality In Social Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Work in the Shadow of Death

Stevenson

Blakey

2021

ASW

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“…A growing body of social work scholarship concerns itself with carceral expansion and critiques the ways in which carceral logic infiltrates everyday social work practice (Bergen & Abji, 2020;Jacobs et al, 2021;Jarldorn, 2020;Kim, 2013;Mehrotra et al, 2016;O'Brien et al, 2020;Valenzuela & Alcarzar-Campos, 2020). Such infiltration is neither neutral nor natural: it reflects both neoliberalism's stranglehold on the profession and social work's historical situatedness in a positivist school of criminological thought regarding practice with criminalized populations (Roberts & Springer, 2007;Wilson, 2010).…”

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confidence: 99%

Social Work With Criminalized Women: Governance or Resistance in the Carceral State?

Leotti

2021

Affilia

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Drawing on findings from a Foucauldian-inspired critical discourse analysis, this article examines the hegemonic ways in which social work engages with criminalized women. Utilizing the analytic of governmentality, I explore the construction of criminalized women in contemporary social work discourse and ask how those constructions support and shape practice with criminalized women. Results show that knowledge production in social work serves as a significant site through which the profession draws on, but also resists, carceral logics. I begin by discussing contemporary social work as a form of neoliberal governance. Specifically, I illuminate the ways in which social work is implicated in surveillance and control and how this involvement is obscured under the framework of helping. I then describe how bold counter discourses, such as those offered by abolitionist and anti-carceral thought foster spaces of resistance within the profession. I argue that social work should claim a stance of radical imagination in which we take seriously the calls to abolish the varying manifestations of the carceral state.

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“…Anti-carceral logic proposes a radically different approach to the mental health movement, embracing traditions of interdependence and emphasizing social connectedness while utilizing a critical systems analysis to interrupt carceral response. Social work's purpose in an anti-carceral mental health movement must be not only to center the wellness of those most impacted by violence and oppression, but also to uproot methods of carceral intervention, prioritize self-determination in mental health policy, and reimagine the role of peers in new community structures of life-affirming care (Jacobs et al, 2020).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Peer Support as a Tool for Community Care: “Nothing About Us, Without Us”

Bakshi¹

2021

CSWR

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In the face of socio-political marginalization, frontline communities reclaim power by harnessing peer wisdom and resilience. The year 2020 marked the confluence of a global pandemic and widespread resistance against anti-Black racism and police violence, highlighting the value of peer voices and community perspectives. To dismantle and transcend carceral approaches to community care, the field of social work is invited to join a larger anti-carceral mental health movement that honors lived experience and works alongside peers to build identity-affirming structures of mental health care. This article examines the ways in which frontline communities benefit from expanded access to anti-carceral formal and informal peer support as a mental health safety net that interrupts harm and prioritizes agency, consent, and self-determination. This paper broadens social work’s conceptualization of peer support through theoretical frameworks of anti-carceral social work, abolition, and intersectionality. Social work and its adjacent fields are called to urgently center Black liberation, collective healing, and community care by advocating for the integration of formal and informal peer support into mental health policy and practice. This paper strategically leans into a lineage of critical peer thought scholarship by utilizing footnotes and citations to model the ethical acknowledgment of peer labor within human rights movements. This intentional structure promotes radical solidarity that resists the exploitation of people with lived experience.

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Defund the Police: Moving Towards an Anti-Carceral Social Work

Cited by 105 publications

References 60 publications

Social Work in the Shadow of Death

Social Work in the Shadow of Death

Social Work With Criminalized Women: Governance or Resistance in the Carceral State?

Peer Support as a Tool for Community Care: “Nothing About Us, Without Us”

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