Forensic Social Work: Current and Emerging Developments

Abstract

Social work assessment and treatment with crime victims, juvenile offenders, and convicted felons have been viewed by some as the weakest link of social work practice, but by others as an area of boundless possibility as the field of criminal justice expands into new directions, many of them compatible with the values of social work. Accordingly, this chapter provides an overview of forensic social work, which refers to policies, practices, legal issues and remedies, and social work roles with juvenile and adult offenders, as well as victims of crimes. There has been a growing concern in recent years regarding the increasing number of offenders and victims in urgent need of mental health treatment and social services, some of whom are at high risk of future violence if they do not receive the evidence-based interventions they urgently need. In the past two decades, professional social workers have made significant progress in advocating for and obtaining critically needed social services for juvenile offenders, adult offenders, and victims of violent crimes and in placing students in the correctional field. Our vision for the future is that all vulnerable and at-risk clients will have the opportunity to be helped by especially trained forensic social work advocates, clinicians, and policy-makers. Our expectation is that the profession of social work will provide critically needed leadership in the correctional field and to reconnect and reclaim, as a profession, with the critically important domains of juvenile and criminal justice. Keywords: forensic social work; criminal justice; juvenile justice; victims; offenders