Abolition and Social Work

"A critical anthology exploring the debates, conundrums, and promising practices around abolition and social work in academia and within impacted communities. Within social work--a profession that has been intimately tied to and often complicit in the building and sustaining of the carceral state--abolitionist thinking, movement-building, and radical praxis are shifting the field. Critical scholarship and organizing have helped to name and examine the realities of carceral social work as a form of "soft policing." For radical social work, abolition moves beyond critique to the politics of possibility." --

Foreword
Introduction (Mimi E. Kim, Cameron Rasmussen, and Durrell M. Washington)
Society for Social Work and Research Keynote (Angela Y. Davis)
Section 1: Possibilities

• Abolitionist Social Work (Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work)
• Abolition: The Missing Link in Historical Efforts to Address Racism and Colonialism Within the Profession of Social Work (Justin Harty, Autumn Asher BlackDeer, and Maria Gandarilla Ocampo)
• Reaching for the Abolitionist Horizon Within White Professionalized Social-Change Work (Sophia Sarantakos)
• Abolitionist Reform for Social Workers (Sam Harrell)

Section 2: Paradox

• Is Social Work Obsolete? (Kassandra Frederique)
• No Restorative Justice Utopia: Abolition and Working with the State (Wakumi Douglas)
• Abolition, Social Welfare and the State (Mimi E. Kim, Cameron Rasmussen, and Durrell M. Washington)

Section 3: Praxis

• Staying in love with each other’ s survival: Practicing at the Intersection of Liberatory Harm Reduction and Transformative Justice (Shira Hassan)
• Social Work and Family Policing (Joyce McMillan and Dorothy Roberts) 
• Indigenist Abolition: Strategies for Decolonization, Healing, and Imagination in Social Work Practice (Ramona Beltran, Katie Schultz, Angela Fernandez)
• Involuntary Commitment in Public Sector Mental Health Services: Anti-Carceral Strategies & Responses (Leah Jacobs and Nev Jones)
• Queer Black Feminism and Social Work Practice (Interview with Charlene Carruthers)