Helping the ‘Justice-Involved’
Schools of Social Work
By Peter Craig
With the mass incarceration that’s occurred in the U.S. over recent decades, the criminal justice system is open for business for social worker students who seek to help the “justice-involved”—those accused or convicted and their families.
But why not just become an attorney? Symphony R. Wilson considered that option before deciding to get her MSW in forensic social work at Alabama State University instead. “It’s a more down-to-earth approach to advocacy,” she says. “Attorneys argue the law, they argue the case, whereas in social work you have the opportunity to really learn about a person, learn about their systems and what influenced them to be where they are.”
Rehabilitation or Punishment?
In her “Human Behavior in the Social Environment” course in 2022, Alabama State University’s Dr. Denise Davis-Maye (left) captures the attention of MSW students like Adrina Johnson (right)
In the late 1800s, the Progressive “Charities and Corrections” movement was launched to support people caught up in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Rehabilitation was the dominant theme for decades, with social workers at the forefront. The idea of rehabilitation lost ground at times in the 20th century during such initiatives as the Nixon administration’s War on Crime in the late 1960s—and criminal justice/forensic social work jobs would become scarce. “But now we’ve seen a real shift back, which is real exciting, and part of it has to do with trauma-informed care and gender-specific treatment for women in prison,” says Dr. Katherine van Wormer, professor emerita of social work, University of Northern Iowa, whose latest book is “Women and the Criminal Justice System: Gender, Race, and Class.”
What do forensic social work students need to learn? Start with getting the terminology straight, says John P. Maheras II, MSW, LCSW, a mitigation specialist for the Indiana Federal Community Defenders in Indianapolis and president-elect, Forensic Social Work Alliance. Don’t say “jail” (a facility mainly for those convicted of misdemeanors or accused of felonies) when you mean “prison” (for those convicted of felonies), says Maheras, who is also a PhD candidate at Indiana University. And parole is different from probation.
Maheras doesn’t think that forensic social work students need to take a law course, but that they do need to be exposed to key information through forensic social work courses or practicum. “For example, in the Alliance certificate program, social workers learn the federal and state laws regarding when they should—and should not—comply with a subpoena as part of their obligation to protect client confidentiality and also learn best practices to explain those rights to their clients.”
Other Learnings
In the forensic area of focus at the University of Utah College of Social Work, there are two practice courses on the intersection of the criminal justice system with mental health and substance use, says Dr. Emily Salisbury, associate professor of social work and director of the Utah Criminal Justice Center. With justice-involved clients, students learn that “it isn’t enough to address the behavioral health
needs of these clients; [you must] also address the known predictors of antisocial behavior.”
In addition to learning macro and micro skills, says University of Utah social work PhD candidate Mariah Cowell Mercer, it’s important to develop strong mezzo skills to “interact with communities, organizations, families, systems, individuals in a way that kind of brings everything together for folks when they’re navigating those complex systems.”
University of Utah social work professor Dr. Emily Salisbury (center) in 2025 with then-MSW students Katie Atencio (left) and Zach Lee.
Just the Facts
In the Alabama State University’s forensic social work concentration, students take a forensic practice introductory course, along with courses in such areas as psychopathology and expert testimony, says Dr. Denise Davis-Maye, social work professor and department chair.
In the vital task of expert testimony, she adds, social workers present to the court unbiased, impartial information for either the prosecutor or the defense about the personal history of the defendant and any social or psychological factors that might affect the case. “This is the diagnosis; this is a history that might have contributed to this particular behavior.” (Students also learn about mitigation, where social workers engage in research for the defense to find any information about the defendant that might humanize that person during trial and possibly lead to a lighter sentence.)
Meanwhile, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice, associate professor Dr. Toorjo Ghose—who is also founding co-director (along with Dr. Alison Updyke Neff) of The Center for Carceral Communities—teaches forensic social work from an abolitionist viewpoint, hoping to raze the whole criminal justice system and start over. One of his courses, for instance, is “Taking Down the Criminal Industrial Complex.” Other courses at the school are more reform-based, he says. “But either way, whether abolitionist or reform-based, from a structural point of view students get a deeper understanding of how this is a centuries-old system of incarcerating poor people and people of color, and how the whole perspective jibes with one of the Grand Challenges of Social Work, which is addressing the gaps, the disparities in criminal justice.”
Future of Forensic Practice: Exploring the Possibilities
Where does forensic social work go from here? Extensive research has been taking place on many fronts.
Indiana University social work PhD candidate John P. Maheras II, MSW, LCSW, is focusing his dissertation on the mental health benefits of “peer programming”—in this case training people held in correctional facilities to provide health education to fellow inmates. “It’s a way to force-multiply,” says the mitigation specialist for the Indiana Federal Community Defenders in Indianapolis. “You have ‘native presenters’ who are already in there, and don’t have to go through security every day. It was also interesting seeing that they had a sense of purpose and a very pro-social activity in the presence of a pretty antisocial climate.”
At the University of Utah, associate professor of social work Dr. Emily Salisbury is the director of the Utah Criminal Justice Center, which does a lot of research both on and for the state criminal justice system. One recent study was a federally funded report on community supervision fees and the need to curtail the amount of fees that justice-involved people pay for their own supervision. “It’s really appalling that people have to pay the fees for their own punishment from different agencies,” says Salisbury.
Also at the University of Utah, PhD candidate Mariah Cowell Mercer is finishing up her dissertation on public safety, considering community violence intervention through reinvestment in communities rather than boosting the law enforcement presence. It has its origins in the Ferguson, Mo., unrest of 2014, when Mercer began to perceive law enforcement as a “really critical nexus for addressing much of the harm that happens to communities, with a lot of consequences for health, mental health, mobility, economic status, all those kinds of things.”
Following are samples of published research material on forensic social work: