Social Work Education and Practice in the Jail Setting

ABSTRACT

Despite social work's historical commitment to social justice and the strength of the profession in terms of the number of persons holding master degrees in social work, we are guilty of ignoring the needs which confront us daily from inside one of the oldest institutions in this country: the jail. The jail setting offers social workers the opportunity to simultaneously address the various critical needs of a multi-client system, a system which includes rising numbers of persons with serious and persistent mental illnesses, overworked and underappreciated detention personnel, and an often tedious and impersonal judicial process. In this article, the fit between jail system needs and social work education is explored and encouraged. Envisioned is an interdependent relationship where the jail provides the Academy and its students access to an environment rich and ripe for study and, in turn, the Academy offers the jail both direct services and indirect support for identifying and intervening in inmate mental health crises. Their mutual objective is the development of jail-based mental health programming.