Carceral Care: Logics of Carceral Protectionism and Social Control within Social Service Delivery Across Time

• In Event: Roundtable: Reentry

Abstract

How does carcerality manifest in social service provision? Building upon the concept of carceral creep (Kim 2020) within anti-domestic violence organizations that began to align themselves with law enforcement, this roundtable addresses the tensions between criminalization and care that have manifested across a variety of social service contexts and time periods. This roundtable will address carceral logics within historical and contemporary social service contexts, engaging participants in a critical examination of the carceral collaborations between social work, policing, corrections, and probation/parole. Through discussion of their respective research projects, roundtable speakers will provide examples of carceral collaboration in case studies of police-social work collaborations, dual involvement in juvenile legal and child welfare systems, restorative justice interventions within and around the criminal-legal system, harm reduction and criminalization of people who use drugs, and the co-development of the social work and corrections professions. Roundtable speakers will bring a diverse set of perspectives to the conversation, focusing on strategies to remove carceral logics (including surveillance, social control, and carceral protectionism) from social service provision. Through a mix of historical and contemporary examples, this roundtable aims to highlight opportunities to infuse anti-carceral approaches into a wide array of social service contexts.

Authors

• Brianna Suslovic, University of Chicago

• Matthew Bakko, Wayne State University

• Emily Claypool, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Jax Kynn, Michigan State University

• Bethany Jo Murray, University of California, Los Angeles

• Cameron Rasmussen, University of Hawaii