Social Work Practice in the Criminal Justice System

George Patterson, George T. Patterson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781000734188
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Criminal Law
• Index: Law

Social Work Practice in the Criminal Justice System presents an overview of the criminal justice system for social workers, exploring the networks and institutions which comprise it.

Integrating social work ethics and a commitment to social justice, this textbook explores social work practice roles to address social problems within the criminal justice system and promotes the development of knowledge, skills, and critical reflection in this increasingly important area of practice. In addition to covering the four key areas for social work practice – law enforcement, courts, corrections, and legislation, it covers police social work and forensic social work.

This second edition has been updated to include:

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• The opioid crisis and opioid courts

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• Separate chapters describing special populations and contemporary issues in the criminal justice system

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• Expanded criminal justice perspectives and theoretical frameworks.

Examining the challenges and opportunities of social work practice in the criminal justice system, this is the ideal text for social work instructors, students, and practitioners working with or within the criminal justice system. Each chapter includes a summary of social work practice implications, key terms, and suggestions for further reading.

Chapter 1

Introduction to the U.S. criminal justice system

Chapter overview

The criminal justice system consists of complex organizations that interact with offenders and victims. However, the criminal justice system addresses much more than crime. It affects the daily life of citizens in many ways. This chapter briefly describes and establishes the U.S. criminal justice system as a system comprised of interdependent subsystems. The four subsystems that form the criminal justice system are: legislation, law enforcement, courts and corrections. The criminal justice system functions at local, state and federal governmental levels. American Indian and tribal communities have established separate law enforcement agencies, courts and correctional institutions. No uniform criminal justice system exists in the U.S. Each state has its own distinct laws that define criminal behavior as well as guidelines used to punish offenders. This chapter also provides an overview of criminal justice perspectives that influence the system, relevant theories that explain offending behavior and victimization, traces the early involvement of the social work profession in the criminal justice system, and examines the size and scope of the system. Finally, this chapter identifies the need to balance public safety concerns, a major focus of the criminal justice system, with public health issues while simultaneously engaged in ethical social work practice as articled in the NASW Code of Ethics.

A note on terms used throughout the book

At the onset of this book, it is important to distinguish between several important concepts that will commonly appear throughout the book. Social work practice will be used often to refer to social work practice within the criminal justice system. Regarding social work practice in the criminal justice system, two types of practice are delineated. Social work practice within the criminal justice system is used to reference employment in the criminal justice subsystems that include the legislative arena, law enforcement agencies, the courts system and corrections. Examples include social workers who are probation and parole officers, and police social workers. Practice outside of the criminal justice system involves employment in human service agencies that are not part of the criminal justice system. However, these agencies offer programs and services to individuals with criminal justice system involvement. Examples include community-based agencies that provide services or transitional housing for offenders reentering communities.

Individuals with criminal justice system involvement refers to individuals who are on probation or parole supervision, those awaiting trial, arrested individuals, those charged with a crime, crime victims and survivors, and formerly incarcerated offenders who have completed all sentencing requirements such as incarceration and parole. A point should be made that not all individuals are involved with the criminal justice system as a result of crime-related situations. The criminal justice system also attends to an array of other legal matters such as property issues, whereas in some jurisdictions homebuyers require an attorney, and family matters such as custody, guardianship and divorce.

Four components of the criminal justice system

Most often, three components of the criminal justice system are identified and described. These three components are law enforcement, courts and corrections (Albanese, 2013; Frase & Weidner, 2002; Wilson, 2010; Young & Lomonaco, 2001). Alexander (2008) described a fourth component of the criminal justice system, legislation. Alexander suggested that law enforcement has the responsibility of arresting individuals who commit crimes; the courts have the responsibility for bringing individuals to trial; corrections oversees incarceration, community-based supervision and monitoring; and state legislatures and Congress have the responsibility for defining criminal acts and punishment guidelines. Ross and Gould (2006) also described four components although their components were courts, law enforcement, corrections and juvenile justice. In subsequent chapters of this book, these four components will be examined as subsystems within the criminal justice system.

Public safety and public health

This book is grounded in the need to balance public safety, a major goal of the criminal justice system, with public health. Public safety refers to the efforts of law enforcement, public safety, security and other officials to protect communities from crime and maintain safety in communities. Public health refers to recognizing and treating health problems such as HIV and AIDs, hepatitis, opioid and substance use and abuse, mental illness, and tuberculosis, among other health concerns. Higher rates of these public health concerns exist among individuals with criminal justice system involvement.

Social workers must balance public safety and public health concerns while at the same time engaging in competent and ethical social work practice. Therefore, this book is also grounded in the NASW Code of Ethics and the values of the social work profession. Indeed, a profession which has a central function to promote social justice can find many areas in the criminal justice system where the profession can be active. However, fulfilling this mission within the criminal justice system requires specialized knowledge and skills.

A note about size and scope of the U.S. criminal justice system

As mentioned in the Preface, statistics describing the size and scope of the U.S. criminal justice system increase and decrease periodically. As such, it is nearly impossible to print in a book statistics that are up-to-date given the frequency with which the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) publishes criminal justice reports. Therefore, the statistical information and report summaries presented over the next pages are not envisioned to be up-to-date, but rather illustrative of the size and scope of the criminal justice in the U.S. Since its inception in 1979, BJS, as part of the Office of Justice Programs in the U.S. Department of Justice, collects and analyzes crime data, and data about victims of crime and offenders. These reports are published on the BJS website and can be viewed by topic. The BJS and other websites should be consulted for the most recent statistical reports.

Size and scope of the U.S. criminal justice system

Data can be helpful for contextualizing the size and scope of the U.S. criminal justice system and populations with various types of criminal justice system involvement. Data are useful for understanding victimization rates, the numbers of incarcerated individuals and how widespread an issue can be. Finally, data can also describe patterns and trends that change when compared over time. It is important to understand how data were collected and analyzed so that the strengths and limitations of the data can be assessed. As we shall see in Chapter 2, this is particularly useful when presenting an issue to legislators about the magnitude of a social problem or crime.

The size and scope of the U.S. criminal justice system and individuals involved with the system are quite impressive. The numbers include not only offenders and victims of crime, but also employees and governmental expenditures.

In 2007, family and juvenile courts processed approximately 1,666,100 juvenile delinquency cases, or about 4,600 cases per day. Juvenile delinquency court processing of cases increased by more than 300% between 1960 and 2007 (Puzzanchera, Adams, & Sickmund, 2010).

In 2009, more than 7.2 million individuals were either on probation or parole supervision, or incarcerated in jails or prisons. This figure represents 3.1% of the adult U.S. population or 1 of every 32 adults in the U.S. population. Through 2009, there were 4,203,967 adults on probation, and 819,308 on parole or mandatory conditional release from prison. Also through 2009, 1,613,740 adults were incarcerated in state or federal prisons (1,405,622 were incarcerated in State prisons and 208,118 in federal prisons). By midyear 2009, jails incarcerated 760,400 adults who were either awaiting trial or serving a jail sentence (Bureau of Justice Statistics, n.d.a).

Through June 30, 2009, nearly 1 in every 134 Americans were incarcerated in jail or prison. Black, non-Hispanic males were 6 times more likely to be incarcerated than white non-Hispanic males, and 2.6 times more likely than Hispanic males to be incarcerated. Among females, 1 in every 300 black females was incarcerated, in contrast to about 1 in every 1,099 white females and 1 in every 704 Hispanic females (West, 2010). Approximately 650,000 individuals are released each year from state and federal prisons (U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, n.d.). When these individuals reenter communities they are in need of a variety of community-based services such as substance abuse, health and mental health care, housing, and employment.

Recidivism rates among former offenders are relatively high. Langan and Levin (2002) used four outcomes to assess recidivism rates: rearrest, reconviction, a resentence to prison, and reincarceration either with or without a new sentence. In 1994, follow-up was conducted with approximately 300,000 inmates after their release from prison in 15 States. The data shows that 67.5% of former offenders were rearrested within a three year period. Within the same three period, nearly half (46.9%) committed new crimes that resulted in reconviction, 25.4% were resentenced to prison for committing a new crime, and 51.8% were returned to prison for a new sentence or a violation of their release conditions. These violations include failing a drug test, failing to keep parole appointments or being arrested for committing a new crime.

The primary crimes that resulted in recidivism among former offenders were motor vehicle theft (78.8%), having or selling stolen property (77.4%), larceny (74.6%), burglary (74.0%), robbery (70.2%), and having, using or selling illegal weapons (70.2%) (Langan & Levin, 2002). The authors reported lower rearrest rates for driving while intoxicated (51.5%), rape (46.0%), sexual assault (41.4%), and homicide (40.7%).

In general, the new crimes that were committed at higher rates are economic crimes. These crimes appear to provide some financial benefit for former offenders. The crimes also affect victims who are robbed or burglarized. Patterns in the types of new crimes that are committed, and how victims are impacted raise several questions. If more employment opportunities were provided for former offenders, would we observe a decrease in these new crimes? Would we observe a decrease in robberies and burglaries? What are the most effective approaches for assisting former offenders with financial needs? Certainly one’s financial situation is tied to many other needs such as housing, food and transportation.

To illustrate further how some crime and incarceration statistics fluctuate, violent crimes, such as homicide, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault, decreased by 6.2% during the first six months of 2010 when compared to the first six months of 2009 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2010). The number of inmates incarcerated in county and city jails decreased by 2.4% between midyear 2009 and midyear 2010 (Minton, 2011).

Criminal justice expenditures

Local governments spend more on criminal justice services than either state governments or federal government. Spending on law enforcement and judicial (which includes civil and criminal courts, and corrections) has continued to increase since 1982. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (n.d.b), in 2007 all levels of government reported spending approximately $228 billion dollars for law enforcement, judicial, corrections and legal services. This figure represents a 1.3% increase over 2006 spending levels for these services. During 2007, federal, state and local governments spent approximately $104 billion for police protection services, $50 billion for judicial and legal services, and $74 billion for corrections. Local governments spent $116 billion dollars on criminal justice, whereas state governments spent $74 billion dollars and the federal governmental spent $37 billion. To place criminal justice spending in perspective, this compares to $705.9 billion dollars in Medicare spending, and $581.9 billion dollars in Medicaid spending in 2017 (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, n.d).

Spending levels for criminal justice services clearly show that local governments spend more than state governments and the federal government combined. Although social workers provide a variety of criminal justice services within the federal and state governments, most services are provided at local governmental levels. These local governments overwhelmingly bear the responsibility for criminal justice services. Social workers are also more likely to be employed in local agencies and collaborate with local governmental agencies such as law enforcement agencies.

Criminal justice employment

In 2007, 2.5 million individuals were employed nationwide in local, state and federal criminal justice systems. Among law enforcement services, 76% of employees worked within local government, 9.2% were employed at st...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction to the U.S. criminal justice system
• 2. Legislation and the criminal justice system
• 3. Law enforcement
• 4. The court system
• 5. Corrections
• 6. Criminal justice reforms and alternative programs
• 7. Special populations in the criminal justice system
• 8. Contemporary issues in the criminal justice system and social work practice
• 9. Social work practice in the criminal justice system
• 10. Evidence-based practices in the criminal justice system
• 11. The future of social work practice in the criminal justice system
• Resources
• Index