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Social Sciences
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Between Criminalization and Care: Reimagining Social Work's Role in the...
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Between Criminalization and Care: Reimagining Social Work's Role in the Carceral State

A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760). This special issue belongs to the section "Crime and Justice".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2025) | Viewed by 11548

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Sandra Leotti

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Division of Social Work, College of Health Sciences, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA
Interests: feminist theories; criminalization and gender; disability; carceral state; social justice; critical pedagogy; abolition; anti-carceral social work

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The unique experiences of criminalized women at the intersection of the criminal legal system and social services must be focused on. While the carceral state impacts marginalized communities broadly, it has distinct and often intensified effects on women. These range from gender-specific forms of violence and abuse to the unique responsibilities and challenges of motherhood under state supervision. These obstacles are further amplified by systemic factors such as racism and are often exacerbated by social service systems, intensifying their marginalization and vulnerability.

Despite social work’s commitment to social justice, the discipline faces the critical task of scrutinizing the potential harm and unintended outcomes resulting from current interventions. This invites us to engage in reflective critique, aiming to align our methodologies and pedagogies more closely with the lived experiences of criminalized women.

This Special Issue calls for bold contributions that dissect the complex relationship between criminalization and care. We welcome empirical research, critical theoretical examinations, and reflective practice narratives that can deepen our understanding of this pivotal issue. We are particularly interested in submissions that critically evaluate systemic structures affecting criminalized women and illuminate the far-reaching impacts of the carceral state on women’s lives.

Dr. Sandra Leotti
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • social work
  • social services
  • criminalized women
  • carceral state
  • social justice
  • transformative practice
  • intersectionality
  • systemic barriers
  • feminist criminology
  • anti-carceral social work

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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18 pages, 270 KiB  
Article
Disrupting the Abuse-Prison Nexus: The Gendered Violence of Prosecution and Abolitionist Feminist Approaches to Social Care Work
by Sid P. Jordan, Emily Thuma, Aylaliyah Assefa Birru, Deirdre Wilson, Romarilyn Ralston, Norma Cumpian and Joseph Hankins
Soc. Sci. 2025, 14(3), 184; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14030184 - 18 Mar 2025
Viewed by 417
Abstract
The vast majority of people in U.S. women’s prisons are survivors of interpersonal violence, a pattern that organizers and advocates have referred to as the abuse-to-prison pipeline. This article critically examines criminal prosecution from the perspectives of survivors of interpersonal violence who faced [...] Read more.
The vast majority of people in U.S. women’s prisons are survivors of interpersonal violence, a pattern that organizers and advocates have referred to as the abuse-to-prison pipeline. This article critically examines criminal prosecution from the perspectives of survivors of interpersonal violence who faced long prison sentences in California. In-depth interviews and group discussions were generated through a participatory process at a gathering to launch the University of California Sentencing Project, a partnership with the community-based organization California Coalition for Women Prisoners. The twenty-two formerly incarcerated participants had collectively spent more than 300 years imprisoned. Drawing on their lived experiences spanning several decades and multiple jurisdictions, this article offers an unyielding account of tactics of isolation, intimidation, narrative manipulation, and confinement as definitional to prosecutorial practice and culture. This criminalized survivor-centered analysis of prosecution shows how one of the most robustly funded public interventions for interpersonal violence is not merely failing to protect victims but is protracting patterns of abuse and coercive control. Implications are discussed in terms of social care work and collective defense rooted in abolition feminism. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Between Criminalization and Care: Reimagining Social Work's Role in the Carceral State)
20 pages, 301 KiB  
Article
Taking Off the Mask: Examining the Biopolitics of Care Amongst Criminalized Women with Substance Use Histories
by Jordan Dyett
Soc. Sci. 2025, 14(3), 122; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14030122 - 20 Feb 2025
Viewed by 565
Abstract
The carceral apparatus in the U.S. can be understood as mechanisms of policing, criminalizing, and incarcerating through the criminal justice system in its traditional sense but also encompassing mechanisms of social control, surveillance, and violence exerted through other systems such as family policing [...] Read more.
The carceral apparatus in the U.S. can be understood as mechanisms of policing, criminalizing, and incarcerating through the criminal justice system in its traditional sense but also encompassing mechanisms of social control, surveillance, and violence exerted through other systems such as family policing organizations, social service agencies, and helping professions. As we are witnessing the impacts of the toxic drug supply crisis and continued reliance on the “war on drugs” policies, these carceral functions are deeply felt among people who use drugs and have substance use disorders. This qualitative study uses the Foucauldian lens of biopolitics and biopower to examine how power operates in carceral systems and impacts women who use substances. By conducting and analyzing in-depth interviews with four women who identify as systems-involved in the U.S., this study highlights that power operates in a multitude of ways. The findings highlight the gendered experience these individuals face navigating these systems of circularity, including the minimization of bodily autonomy, the destruction of social reproduction, and coercive performances to the patriarchal gaze. The findings also amplify the women’s perspective on systemic change and offer alternatives to current carceral approaches. This research provides insights for social service professionals in all fields for more liberatory approaches to working with women in carceral settings and proposes a radical departure from current trajectories of social control and criminalization. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Between Criminalization and Care: Reimagining Social Work's Role in the Carceral State)
15 pages, 247 KiB  
Article
The Survival Line: A Case Study in Anti-Carceral Community-Based Hotline Work
by Brianna J. Suslovic
Soc. Sci. 2025, 14(3), 121; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14030121 - 20 Feb 2025
Viewed by 511
Abstract
Community members seeking alternatives to policing have played a substantive role in promoting safety and responding to harm for decades. The Survival Line was formed as a volunteer-run hotline to respond to community members’ concerns about neighborhood crime or police misconduct. It was [...] Read more.
Community members seeking alternatives to policing have played a substantive role in promoting safety and responding to harm for decades. The Survival Line was formed as a volunteer-run hotline to respond to community members’ concerns about neighborhood crime or police misconduct. It was established in the summer of 1970 as a mechanism for gathering data while also referring callers to community resources like pro bono attorneys and low-cost social services. It ran as a 24/7 hotline staffed entirely by volunteers from the Action for Survival coalition, a group of community-based organizations, which included the Chicago Urban League. Using historical analytic methods, this study asks the following: what function did this citizen-run hotline serve in 1970s Chicago? This study mobilizes archival research methods to analyze call records, meeting minutes, publicity materials, and internal memos from the Chicago Urban League and its Survival Line archives. This archival analysis found that the Survival Line served multiple functions; it was a non-state response to urban crises, a vehicle for Black solidarity, and a mechanism for gathering data on crime and police misconduct in the city. By functioning as an alternative to policing and state responses to crime, a vehicle for Black neighborhood solidarity, and a data collection mechanism, the Survival Line was at the core of an impactful micropolitical intervention upon urban crises in 1970s Chicago. As a historical example of community-driven violence and crisis response, this hotline has implications for contemporary social work—specifically for direct practice, community organizing, program design and evaluation, and community-based participatory research. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Between Criminalization and Care: Reimagining Social Work's Role in the Carceral State)
15 pages, 314 KiB  
Article
“We Owe It to Those Who Shall Come After Us”: Considering the Role of Social Work Education in Disrupting Carceral Complicity
by Carly Mychl Murray, Samantha A. Martinez, Alexa Cinque, Yejin Sohn and Grace Newton
Soc. Sci. 2024, 13(9), 491; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13090491 - 17 Sep 2024
Viewed by 1362
Abstract
Reflecting upon Mary Richmond’s early call for formalized social work training to address the historical struggles of the field, this analysis examines how American social work education has addressed the paradoxes of help and harm present in the field for more than a [...] Read more.
Reflecting upon Mary Richmond’s early call for formalized social work training to address the historical struggles of the field, this analysis examines how American social work education has addressed the paradoxes of help and harm present in the field for more than a century. We examine how, under the guise of benevolence and care, social work has exerted social control and contributed to gendered criminalization. We use the term carceral complicity to extend the concept of carceral social work, illustrating how carceral complicity has contributed to women’s criminalization through the embedding, enacting, and invisibilizing of carceral logics in social work. In addition to describing how carceral complicity has been addressed in social work education, we illustrate the gendered nature of carceral complicity, highlighting how women have historically and contemporarily been positioned as both the proprietors and the recipients of carceral complicity. In line with recent scholarship, we suggest that through a transformative approach to social work education we may disrupt carceral complicity and support liberatory futures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Between Criminalization and Care: Reimagining Social Work's Role in the Carceral State)
18 pages, 333 KiB  
Article
‘Compassionate’ Control: Social Work and the Rise of Carceral Feminism in Progressive Era Police Reform
by Bethany Jo Murray, Jennifer Erwin, Sandra Leotti, Elizabeth Allen, Matthew Bakko, Leah A. Jacobs, C. Riley Hostetter, Stephen Monroe Tomczak and Alexandra Fixler
Soc. Sci. 2024, 13(9), 454; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13090454 - 28 Aug 2024
Viewed by 2019
Abstract
The contemporary Defund the Police movement has renewed interest in social work’s role in public safety, leading some to call for increased police–social work collaborations. However, claims regarding the potential virtues and pitfalls of social work–police collaborations are largely ahistorical. To contextualize current [...] Read more.
The contemporary Defund the Police movement has renewed interest in social work’s role in public safety, leading some to call for increased police–social work collaborations. However, claims regarding the potential virtues and pitfalls of social work–police collaborations are largely ahistorical. To contextualize current debates, a systematic investigation into the evolution of social work and its relationship with law enforcement is necessary, particularly the impact that gender norms have had on this relationship. Drawing from the National Conference on Charities and Corrections proceedings, we examined how gendered underpinnings have shaped social work’s relationship to law enforcement and the understanding of social work’s role in public safety. During the Progressive Era, social workers acted as an intervention to reform police by infusing ‘rehabilitative’, ‘protective’, ‘preventative’, and ‘quarantining’ approaches in law enforcement. What emerges from the archives is a chronicle detailing how using social work as a gendered intervention for police reform during the Progressive Era fell short of addressing the root causes of carceral issues, drawing parallels between the Progressive Era reforms and today’s contemporary reforms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Between Criminalization and Care: Reimagining Social Work's Role in the Carceral State)
44 pages, 4103 KiB  
Article
“When Is a School Not a School?” Dr. Carrie Weaver Smith, Child Prisons, and the Limits of Reform in Progressive Era Texas
by Sam Harrell
Soc. Sci. 2024, 13(7), 380; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13070380 - 22 Jul 2024
Viewed by 2088
Abstract
This archival study explores the life and work of Dr. Carrie Weaver Smith (1885–1942), a Progressive Era social worker and prison warden. Specifically, I explore the first phase of her career as a House Physician at the Virginia K. Johnson Home in Dallas, [...] Read more.
This archival study explores the life and work of Dr. Carrie Weaver Smith (1885–1942), a Progressive Era social worker and prison warden. Specifically, I explore the first phase of her career as a House Physician at the Virginia K. Johnson Home in Dallas, Texas (1911–1915) and as the first Superintendent of the Texas State Training School for Girls in Gainesville, Texas (1916–1925). Using archival research, I detail three conflicts that defined Dr. Smith’s superintendency: her fight to reclassify a youth prison as a school, her challenges to a Ku Klux Klan-dominated legislature, and her refusal to cede authority to a State Board of Control. Together, these conflicts led the Board to terminate Dr. Smith’s position, an outcome that would replay twice more before she retired from prisonwork. I argue that when most reformers made significant concessions, compromising their visions to maintain state funding and political allyship, Dr. Smith stood out for her record of refusal. And yet, like other reformers, she left Texas with the capacity to imprison more women and girls than ever before. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Between Criminalization and Care: Reimagining Social Work's Role in the Carceral State)
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17 pages, 316 KiB  
Review
Policing Is Reproductive Oppression: How Policing and Carceral Systems Criminalize Parenting and Maintain Reproductive Oppression
by Maya Pendleton and Alan J. Dettlaff
Soc. Sci. 2024, 13(10), 515; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13100515 - 28 Sep 2024
Viewed by 1838
Abstract
Since the era of chattel slavery, the state has used institutionalized abuse and violence as a tool for reproductive control. Today, public institutions and social services have been established by the state to police and surveil the behavior of poor communities and parents [...] Read more.
Since the era of chattel slavery, the state has used institutionalized abuse and violence as a tool for reproductive control. Today, public institutions and social services have been established by the state to police and surveil the behavior of poor communities and parents to maintain the reproductive violence and oppression that began centuries ago. This paper uses a reproductive justice framework to explore how the history of criminalizing pregnancy, surveilling Black and Indigenous communities, and denying reproductive autonomy are connected to and maintained by the present-day family policing system. In doing so, this paper expands on existing literature to create a stronger link and build solidarity between the movements against family policing and reproductive oppression. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Between Criminalization and Care: Reimagining Social Work's Role in the Carceral State)
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