Forensic Social Work: Specialization Overlaps With Many Areas of the Profession
By Heather Rose Artushin
Forensic social work is the intersection of social work practice and the legal system, both criminal and civil. Criminal defense, child custody issues, juvenile and adult justice, corrections, and mandated treatment all fall within the realm of forensic social work. Many social workers encounter forensics within their scope of practice without even realizing it. Any time clients are involved in the court system, are re-entering society after incarceration, or are involved in child welfare, this is forensic social work.
Forensic Social Work Practice
John Cocco, a mitigation specialist for the Indiana Federal Community Defenders Office, works to investigate extenuating factors such as trauma history, poverty, educational hurdles, substance use, mental health disorders and other complicating factors to offer the court an opportunity to understand the whole person and what vulnerabilities brought them to this point. “You’re not looking to excuse a person’s behavior, but to explain it,” Cocco said. “That this isn’t just some guy that went out and decided to sell drugs or steal, but this is somebody who has profound trauma, mental illness, history of sexual abuse, these kinds of things.”
In his role, Cocco obtains evidence through interviews with the client and corroborating witnesses, like family members, friends, bosses, and probation officers. He also reviews child protective services reports, hospital records, school records, and the like. “I write a sentencing memo that the judge is required to consider, so the goal is, in most cases, to get the lowest possible sentence for our clients,” he said. Rather than a report, Cocco aims to write a compelling narrative centered around themes involved in the person’s life, in order to elicit empathy and understanding from the court. “The judge is reading a ton of stuff, so it needs to stand out to them. If you write a really compelling story of someone’s life, and flush out a lot of the details, that matters more.”
Ashley McSwain, LMSW, MSOD, CEO/executive director of New Hope Housing, was a probation officer in Philadelphia. “One of the things that I noticed was that some of the people who were living in poverty were unable to meet the conditions of their release,” she said. “They needed social services, and it wasn’t accessible to them in the way that they needed it to be. When you have people go to court for noncompliance due to poverty, for not having work experience, for being homeless … I began to think that my work should be about providing some support for people involved in the criminal justice system.”
Today, McSwain works with women who are incarcerated, as does Ali Winters, DSW, LCSW, associate professor of practice in the College of Social Work at the University of Tennessee. Her research interests include mental health and solitary confinement, forensic social work ethics and trauma-informed care. Working at Tennessee Prison for Women brought meaning and purpose to her social work practice, she said.
Trauma-informed practice is critical to forensic social work, no matter the population or practice setting. “Women who are incarcerated have one of the highest rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and trauma history,” Winters said. “That’s a large part of why they’re there, most of the time. The basic tenets of trauma-informed care is an approach that goes a long way in forensic settings. Then you have the language to be able to frame the issues that people are dealing with in a way that even the most hardened correctional officer would be able to understand and maybe even accept over time. That may be the hardest task that we have.”
Juvenile Justice
Susan McCarter, PhD, MSW, Bonnie E. Cone Professor in Civic Engagement at the University of North Carolina Charlotte School of Social Work, is passionate about examining the School-to-Prison Pipeline (STPP), juvenile diversion, and racial equity in her research.
“My career in social work began as a clinician providing mental health services to adolescents who were considered ‘at-risk,’” she said. “Many of my early clients were involved with the family courts either on the dependency or child welfare side, or the delinquency side and so, without really calling it that, I was doing forensic social work.”
The STPP describes the connection between the education and justice systems, which is increasingly occupied by youth who struggle with mental health challenges. In fact, while approximately 22% of children in the general U.S. population have psychiatric disorders, 70% of justice-involved children carry a mental health diagnosis. With all the biological, psychological and social changes rapidly occurring in adolescence, this turbulent period of human development can be a time when youth find themselves involved in the juvenile justice system.
“I continue to see the powerful intersectionality of the factors that contribute to the STPP,” McCarter said, including gender identity; race/ethnicity/culture; disability status; trauma and mental health challenges; socioeconomic status; parent/teacher interactions; and more. “Within these intersectional aspects of the STPP is the continued discrimination of marginalized group members demonstrating anti-Blackness, misogynoir, transphobia, white supremacy, and xenophobia, for example … .”
Forensic social workers play an integral role in disrupting the STPP and supporting youth involved in the juvenile justice system.
Immigration
Immigration is a topic that has become highly politicized, riddled with stigma and often a lack of compassion for those crossing the border. “Immigration is a legal issue, and there’s so much intersection between immigration law and social work,” said Winters. In 2013, more than 40 million foreign-born immigrants lived in the United States, representing 13% of the population. Justice and equal opportunity for immigrants requires a conscious effort toward their full social, political and economic integration.
Considering the issues that people encounter pre-migration can help social workers understand the nature of their status when they left, and why they wanted to leave. Exploring a person’s migration experience, what they had to go through to get here, and what kind of trauma they endured along the way also can help social workers support individuals entangled in immigration law.
“There are many barriers they’re dealing with in the process of entering the country and seeking asylum,” Winters said. “Escaping war and famine, cartels, and other things … . Then how do you navigate the post-migration process when you don’t necessarily have adequate representation, you don’t have an opportunity to speak with someone in your own native language and tell your story?”
The stigma related to immigration in today’s society is heavy with judgment and political fear-mongering. “When you think about how people are portrayed, there are great similarities between what immigrants have to deal with and what people who are formerly incarcerated have to deal with in terms of stigma,” Winters said. Social workers who encounter immigration issues in their practice step into forensics, working to help clients navigate the legal aspects of immigration, work through the trauma of migration, overcome stigma, and access the resources they need in the community.
Racial, Ethnic, Economic and Gender Justice
“If you’re going to do this work, you need to be clear about where your biases live,” said McSwain. “It’s important to understand the systemic racism that is embedded in the criminal justice system.”
In working with incarcerated women, Winters noted a great amount of racial and gender inequity. “When you look at race in terms of mental health, specifically correctional mental health, I couldn’t help but notice that the vast majority of my Black patients almost always were diagnosed with ODD or Conduct Disorder, or Antisocial Personality Disorder. Then all the white people were diagnosed with mood disorders, Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Bipolar Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” she explained. “So what you’re doing is you’re using these labels to describe cultural differences. It’s a huge issue, because diagnosis drives treatment. So people aren’t getting what they need if the diagnosis isn’t correct or if it’s skewed by gender or racial disparities. That translates into something very inequitable.”
In addition to mental health disparities, there are marked differences in terms of race and sentencing in the criminal justice system. “Black and Brown people are given harsher sentences,” said McSwain. “They are over policed and those are the kinds of things that need to be acknowledged as a forensic social worker.”
Gender also plays a role in how individuals are treated. McSwain said she started working with women because the criminal justice system is not structured to respond to their gender needs. “The way women jail is very different than how a man jails. Women are very relational. Women need a certain level of engagement in order to be compliant in the system. Women have menstrual cycles, biological differences. All of these things need to be factored in.”
Acknowledging gender not only benefits the system, but also helps meet the needs of individuals more effectively. “There are many differences between how a man gets to prison and how a woman gets to prison, and that needs to be acknowledged,” said McSwain.
In terms of economic justice, cash bail laws in the U.S. are one example of how poverty is often punished in our country’s legal system. When individuals cannot pay the amount of cash bail set by the judge, they are forced to sit in jail awaiting the conclusion of the trial, a process that can take months, or sometimes even years. During this time, their lives can fall apart, losing jobs, housing, relationships, and enduring trauma behind bars.
As social workers, the response to social injustices like these is clear. The NASW Code of Ethics commits social workers to value the dignity and worth of all people and to uphold social justice.
Restorative Justice
While punitive justice aims to punish for wrongdoing, restorative justice focuses on repairing the harm done. Through conversation, reconciliation and rehabilitation, restorative practices are becoming increasingly common in criminal justice systems around the world. “I love restorative justice; it changes everything,” said Winters. “It changes the language, the perspective. It’s not asking, ‘What do we need to do about this person who’s broken the law? How are we going to punish them?’ ... With restorative justice, it’s all about making sure that people acknowledge what’s happened, to take ownership of their role in it, and commit to the process of healing.”
The restorative justice process involves bringing together the people most impacted by a crime to determine how best to repair the harm done. Before offenders can participate, they must take responsibility for what they’ve done and want to make amends. Restorative justice is a valuable approach, but it is not meant to send a message that you can get away with crime. “A lot of people think that restorative justice is all about skipping over the accountability part, but that’s not true,” Winters clarified.
Forensic Social Work Ethics
Forensic social workers face ethical considerations that are worth exploring. For Cocco, a responsibility to report to probation officers and other legal team members often stands in tension with his compassion for the client who is struggling. “As a substance use therapist, we had a lot of clients who were referred by probation,” he said. “Someone might report relapsing, so I have to ask myself, do I report this every time it happens? Is there any therapeutic value to having a client report themselves? What trust do you have in the probation officer or the court that they’ll be understanding or appreciate someone reporting on themselves and holding themselves accountable?”
Confidentiality is complex when it comes to working with incarcerated individuals. “They have this system now where they can text from jail, it’s called Chirp,” explained Cocco. “But the jail, the federal government, the U.S. Attorney’s Office or other law enforcement entities can read that.” Encouraging the client to schedule a video session, which is confidential, can be frustrating, especially if their needs are urgent.
When the legal system is involved, a social worker’s duty to warn also has potentially serious implications. “From a reporting perspective, if someone is suicidal or homicidal we have a duty to report,” said Cocco, “but there’s just that little tug because generally that means in jails and prisons that they could put in isolation.” Being transferred to uncomfortable, suicide-proof clothing in what Cocco describes as a “rubber room” where there is nothing to take their mind off of things can feel more like punishment than help. “But you know, that’s also going to be likely the only alternative we have, aside from them falling through.”
It is also important for forensic social workers to have a clear order from the judge for further information on a client, otherwise that information might be shared in violation of HIPAA laws. “Be mindful that your notes can get subpoenaed,” Cocco said, “so anything you’re typing in or writing on a document can get called up. Be sure not to write anything in the margins. Those kinds of things are really daunting.”
Dual loyalty is something that Winters found herself grappling with in her role with incarcerated women. “Forensic social workers often find themselves in agencies whose policies are not necessarily conducive to social justice, and they may actually inadvertently be damaging or creating barriers to success for their clients,” she said. “I ran into this with solitary confinement, when I saw what it was doing to my patients. How do I navigate that space when I have loyalty to my clients, but I also have loyalty to my employer and my practice setting?” Following the guidelines in the social work Code of Ethics helps Winters navigate these situations in a way that aligns with her values as a social worker. “Advocacy is an endless process,” she said.
Heather Rose Artushin, LISW-CP, is on a mission to make a difference, one word at a time. Learn more at heatherrosewriter.com
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