O’Brien, P., & Willison, J. S. (2022). Anti-oppressive social work practice and the carceral state. Oxford University Press.

Reviewed by Marina Richter, School for Social Work, HES-SO Valais/Wallis

There has been extensive debate on the role of social workers in the US criminal justice system in recent years (Jacobs et al., 2021; Pollack, 2004; Richie & Martensen, 2020). A key aim has been to understand the role of social work in providing support for incarcerated people and at the same time uncover the way it often – even if unconsciously – supports a system that is typically racist, oppressive and extremely punitive. The question that undergirds Anti-Oppressive Social Work Practice and the Carceral State, therefore, is: how can social work in the criminal justice system play a truly supportive role and act in the interest of incarcerated people? In other words, how can social work in this setting avoid being complicit with the carceral state? The answer to these questions is grounded in the work experience of the authors. Both have worked as social workers in criminal justice settings and draw upon their case notes and experiences in developing the book. While this material was not collected in order to conduct empirical research, it allows the authors to use a form of deep participant research to develop their argument and provide deep insights into social work practice in the US criminal justice system.

Anti-oppressive social work is an umbrella term for social justice-oriented social work used widely in the field (Burke & Harrison, 1998; Dominelli, 2002). It has been applied to different oppressive contexts where social work operates, such as criminal justice, migration or social services. Although the authors do not develop a new definition of anti-oppressive social work, and rely instead on the fact that the concept has been well-defined elsewhere (the authors refer, for instance, to a special issue of Affilia: O’Brien et al., 2020), they do link it to trauma-informed practice, feminist social work and a public-health perspective.

As the book explores a reformist practice amongst social workers, it is aimed at students of social work and social work practitioners rather than scholars. Accordingly, the book provides a pedagogical tool in the form of reflective exercises after each chapter to encourage the reader to reflect on the possible applications of the material to social work practice. While the audience clearly comprises social workers, there is potential to engage students from other disciplines, as the book provides vivid insights and a critical, activist perspective on the situation in the US criminal justice system. The authors identify white supremacy, racism and classism as the roots of hyper-incarceration that disproportionately affects African Americans and people with mental illnesses.

The book is structured in three parts. The first describes some of the foundations of anti-oppressive social work in conceptual terms and provides background knowledge on the criminal justice system in the US. It explains why the authors – based on their experience as social workers in carceral settings – decided to write the book and provides a short overview of the concept of anti-oppressive social work. It also describes the criminal justice system in the US and its tendency to criminalize social problems as well as people with mental illnesses. The second part outlines the way that anti-oppressive social work functions in carceral settings. It details how social workers have the capacity to adopt an anti-oppressive approach in different settings – whether in men’s or women’s prisons – to support the needs and interests of their clients, instead of in the interest of the carceral state. The third part identifies possibilities for intervention in the system by social workers. Various areas for intervention addressed include, for example, engaging with family resistance, community support, knowledge-building and restorative justice. These provide a perspective from which to think justice differently. The book ends with a call for action to engage in anti-oppressive social work.

The book potentially links with a number of debates in carceral geography. For instance, Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s (2007) analysis of Californian prison growth and its link to the carceral state provides an important element for the first part of the book on the description of the carceral state and the prison industrial complex.

The book makes a call for a change in the everyday practices of criminal justice social workers. It delivers a wake-up call for social work and the role it plays and could play in supporting – or resisting – the criminal justice system. And last, but not least, this book acts as a witness to current debates and developments in the practice of social work in the US carceral system. In this context, it is an invaluable provocation to us all to think more critically not only about the criminal justice system but also those working within it, aiming at a more just system that acts in the interest of detained and imprisoned people as well as their families, friends, and communities.

Bibliography

Burke, Beverley, & Harrison, Philomena. (1998). Anti-oppressive practice. In R. Adams, L. Dominelli, M. Payne, & J. Campling (Eds.), Social Work (pp. 229–239). Macmillan Education UK. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14400-6_19

Dominelli, Lena. (2002). Anti-oppressive social work theory and practice. Palgrave Macmillan.

Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. (2007). Golden gulag: prisons, surplus, crisis, and opposition in globalizing California. University of California Press.

Jacobs, Leah A., Kim, Mimi E., Whitfield, Darren L., Gartner, Rachel E., Panichelli, Meg, Kattari, Shanna K., Downey, Margaret Mary, McQueen, Shanté Stuart, & Mountz, Sarah E. (2021). Defund the Police: Moving Towards an Anti-Carceral Social Work. Journal of Progressive Human Services, 32(1), 37–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/10428232.2020.1852865

O’Brien, Patricia, Kim, Mimi, Beck, Elizabeth, & Bhuyan, Rupaleem. (2020). Introduction to Special Topic on Anticarceral Feminisms: Imagining a World Without Prisons. Affilia, 35(1), 5–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886109919897981

Pollack, S. (2004). Anti-oppressive Social Work Practice with Women in Prison: Discursive Reconstructions and Alternative Practices. British Journal of Social Work, 34(5), 693–707. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bch085

Richie, Beth E., & Martensen, Kayla M. (2020). Resisting Carcerality, Embracing Abolition: Implications for Feminist Social Work Practice. Affilia, 35(1), 12–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886109919897576