Using Anticarceral Feminism to Illustrate the Impact of Criminalization on the Lives of Individuals in the Sex Trades

Affilia ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 088610992097856
Author(s):  
Moshoula Capous-Desyllas ◽  
Deana Payne ◽  
Meg Panichelli

This research study is informed by anticarceral feminism to understand and highlight the experiences of violence and oppression that individuals in the sex trade experience as a result of police stings, raids, and incarceration. We present findings from 23 in-depth, qualitative interviews with men, women, and trans individuals who were arrested in the Los Angeles sex trade. More specifically, we explore experiences of violence that occurred interpersonally, systemically, and institutionally. Such experiences examine police violence, arrest and incarceration, coercion, and client violence. The findings from this research shed light on the impact the criminalization of sex work has had on research participants in terms of their physical health and mental health, economic security and opportunities for growth and education, and their sense of freedom and autonomy. We also attend to the role that intersecting identities might have played during their encounters with the police. This study explored these aspects while being mindful that the policies and procedures followed by the police are born out of a carceral state. We conclude with antioppressive and antiviolent implications for social work practice, policy, research, and education as we imagine the next decade of social work in relation to sex trade.

Groupwork ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joaquin Castillo de Mesa ◽  
Antonio López Peláez ◽  
Paula Méndez Domínguez

Isolation is a clear indicator of social exclusion. To tackle it, we wondered if it would be possible to improve digital skills and strengthen bonds through online groups on a social networking site. This paper presents the results of an experimental study carried out in Malaga (Spain) with unemployed users of social care services. From the perspective of social work practice with groups, this study aims at strengthening bonds and mutual help through improving digital skills. This was carried out using a Facebook group as a shared space for community empowerment. To know the impact of these interactions, netnography and social network analysis were conveyed, as well as algorithms to identify communities and assess cohesion. Results showed that Facebook groups may be effective tools to promote active learning and mutual support and which can be used effectively by social workers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 379-392
Author(s):  
Shirley Newton-Guest ◽  
Claudia Sofia Moreno ◽  
Marla Coyoy ◽  
Roxanna Najmi ◽  
Tonia Martin ◽  
...  

This has been a season of change worldwide. It has become virtually impossible to ignore distressing news about the state of our world. COVID-19 has changed the way we live, work, how we think, and even how we grieve. Every day, Americans are bombarded with reports of rising death tolls, massive unemployment, economic turmoil, and dismal foreseeable predictions. This health crisis has put an enormous amount of pressure on the global community, and this is especially true for our clients who are new immigrants. This pressure has manifested in mental health challenges. Social workers have reported that for many clients the uncertainty and pressure are becoming too much to handle. Typically, clients are experiencing anxiety, depression, substance use disorder, and in some cases interpersonal violence (Brodhead, 2020; Endale et al. 2020; Saltzman et al.,2020). Now imagine the impact on unaccompanied minors arriving at our borders. Prior to the pandemic, the unaccompanied children were dealing with three crises simultaneously: 1) parental and home country separation; 2) trauma from a harsh journey; and 3) language barrier and cultural shock. These issues alone are overwhelming and cause powerful emotions such as anxiety in these children. So how can these emotions be managed, coupled with the dangers of COVID-19? How can social workers provide comfort and support when they may be experiencing the same emotions? This article brings this hidden reality into the public view and enrich the existing social work body of knowledge by demonstrating the restorative power of faith, spirituality, and self-care.      


Social Work ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 173-190
Author(s):  
Terry Bamford

It is often assumed that child care legislation is a response to scandals and inquiries from the 1948 Children Act to the Children Act 2004. This chapter looks in detail at the preparatory work preceding legislation and demonstrates that the impact of scandals has been greater on securing parliamentary time than it has in shaping legislation. The impact has been greatest on social work practice. Attention and activity have been skewed away from direct work to provide assistance and help towards risk assessment and risk management. There has been a consequent emphasis on the monitoring and surveillance of families and individuals. This shift is true in mental health as well as child care. It is timely to consider whether this shift in practice has made children and families safer.


Author(s):  
Michal Krumer-Nevo

This book describes the new Poverty-Aware Paradigm (PAP), which was developed in Israel through intense involvement with the field of social work in various initiatives. The paradigm was adopted in 2014 by the Israeli Ministry of Welfare and Social Services as a leading paradigm for social workers in social services departments. The book draws from the rich experience of the implementation of the PAP in practice and connects examples of practice to theoretical ideas from radical/critical social work, critical poverty knowledge, and psychoanalysis. The PAP addresses poverty as a violation of human rights and emphasizes people’s ongoing efforts to resist poverty. In order to recognize these sometimes minor acts of resistance and advance their impact, social workers should establish close relationship with service users and stand by them. The book proposes combining relationship-based practice and rights-based practice as a means of bridging the gap between the emotional and material needs of service users. In addition to introducing the main concepts of the PAP, the book also contributes to the debate between conservative and cultural theories of poverty and structural theories, emphasizing the impact of a critical framework on this debate. The book consists of four parts. The first, “Transformation”, addresses the transformational nature of the paradigm. The second, “Recognition”, is based on current psychoanalytic developments and “translates” them into social work practice in order to deepen our understanding of relationship-based practice. The third, “Rights”, describes rights-based practice. The fourth, “Solidarity”, presents various ways in which solidarity might shape social workers’ practice. The book seeks to reaffirm social work’s core commitment to combating poverty and furthering social justice and to offer a solid theoretical conceptualization that is also eminently practical.


2020 ◽  
pp. 002087281988498
Author(s):  
Barbara Kail ◽  
Manoj Pardasani ◽  
Robert Chazin

This article describes the impact on social services of an innovative model of family care in Moshi, Tanzania, aimed at orphaned children and youth who are affected by HIV/AIDS and their caregivers. We explore three questions: Is social capital created during the provision of social work services? If so, what aspects of the model are responsible for it? How does this social capital influence the participants’ educational/occupational aspirations and vision of the future? This qualitative study is based on a case analysis of eight adolescents and their caregivers. Data were collected from in-depth interviews. The unique aspects of a family-oriented, holistic, social service model focused on empowerment and future orientation-generated bridging, bonding, and linking social capital. Youth with more social capital appeared to have clearer visions of their future path. Implications for community-based social work practice serving marginalized and impoverished groups are presented.


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 1238-1257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Fenton

Abstract This article considers the impact of generational changes on the new cohort of social work students most of whom were born post-1995, and therefore belong to ‘iGeneration’ (iGen). This article is especially concerned with the finding that the generation before iGen is more right-wing authoritarian than all post-war generations and what this might mean for the future of social work should that trajectory continue. A study was undertaken to examine the attitudes of 122 iGen students in first-year university course in Scotland. Results show that mean attitudinal measures were right-wing authoritarian in relation to crime and punishment and to unemployed people. Social work students aligned more in their attitudes with their primary education colleagues and less with their less authoritarian community education colleagues, and, overall, the iGen cohort was significantly more right-wing authoritarian than their older colleagues. In essence, there was evidence to suggest that an individualistic, self-sufficiency neoliberal narrative had been quite profoundly internalised by the iGen cohort of students. Implications of a new individualistic practice are considered, and suggestions for social work education programmes are made.


2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn A. Levine ◽  
Kai Zhu

This article provides a contextualized analysis of the ways in which school social workers may address the impact of economic, social and political challenges as they will be experienced by the children of mainland China, and how the profession of school social work may serve to ameliorate the negative effects on children as they transition through these developments.


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