Exploring the Field of Forensic Social Work

            The field of social work is vast area of expertise that works to help individual people, families, communities, polices, marginalized populations, fights for social justice, and so much more. Because of the many facets of social work, there tends to be a lot of overlap in the work with other professions and their realm of work. To help meet these demands social work, as a profession, has a variety of different branches of narrow in the type of work that a social worker will be providing. By doing this, it can help social workers receive more specific training to their jobs and the people that they will be supporting. This article will focus of the field of forensic social work and the important job that is done by them every single day.

What is Forensic Social Work?

            Forensic social work in an area of the field that focuses on work that is overlapped with a client’s well-being and any intersection that they might have with the legal system. This is further defined by Exhibit 1.1 (Maschi & Leibowitz, 2017).

This cross over can occur from working with clients who are involved in any aspects of the legal system including but not limited to, victims, offenders, human rights, polices, equity, and other areas of social, criminal, and legal areas of focus with in the laws of a society.

The reason that this branch of social work exists is because all of the clients that are served by social workers are apart of a larger community. That community is held to the laws and regulations that govern a society. When a client is involved in a legal setting, their mental health and wellbeing is going to play a factor in how things are impacting. Having a specialist being able to help navigate the potential ethical concerns that are most likely to present themselves, would be of great value.

To be a social worker specialized in forensic work, one must develop a rich understanding of how the micro, mezzo, and macro can be impacted by the legal system. Human behavior can violate laws and on the other hand things that happen to people can not only violate their own self, but break the law and can require legal action. This will require the social worker to understand the laws to be an advocate, provide treatment, but also bring about justice. 

Possible Functions of a Forensic Social Worker

            The national Organization of Forensic Social Work (NOFSW) has a great website that outlines their mission for the field of forensic social work. On their website they outline the following functions of forensic social worker:

“Providing consultation, education, or training to:

• Criminal justice, juvenile justice, and correctional systems
• Law makers
• Law enforcement personnel
• Attorneys, law students, and paralegals
• Members of the public

Diagnosis, treatment, and recommendations:

• Diagnosing, assessing, and treating criminal and juvenile justice populations
• Diagnosing, treating, or making recommendations about mental status, childrens’ interests, incapacities, or inability to testify
• Serving as an expert witness
• Screening, evaluating, or treating law enforcement and other criminal justice personnel

Other functions:

• Policy and program development
• Mediation, advocacy, and arbitration
• Teaching, training, and supervising
• Behavioral Science Research and Analysis”

(National Organization of Forensic Social Work, n.d.).

Ethical Concerns

            The social work profession is filled with potential ethical concerns that will arise in a variety of ways. The area of forensic social work, is no different. Having cases being attached to the law can often create the feeling of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. A social worker may have the desire to resolve their potential ethical dilemma with the utilitarianism, which is the theory that the best course of action is the one that will lead to the greatest good for all involved (Mill, 2016). However, they may find that when the law is involved, it might not be that simple.

            Ethical dilemmas in the field of forensic work have been found to be quite tricky. This occurs because of the conflicts that can arise from roles, principles, rules, systems, duties, and stakeholders involved in social work (Weinstock et al., 2017). These problems could arise in the following ways: 

• Social workers could help their clients by twisting the law

• Upholding the law but at the client’s own mental health cost
  

It is for these reasons that it is still in best practice to follow the Code of Ethics outlined by The National Association of Social Workers (NASW). 

Potential Ethical Conflict

            An example of an ethical dilemma that could occur very often is working with a client who has been convicted of a crime but shows clears signs of mental health issues. The conflict arises because justice wants to be satisfied by the law, but that justice may not provide the help that this client might need. The case could be a minor who sexually assaults another minor. While it is clear under the law that sexual assault should not be tolerated to any degree regardless of the age of the abuser, minors account for 35.6% of sex offenses against other minors (Finkelhor et al., 2009). 

There could be a lot of complex issues, but one that could be explored is what if the minor themselves was abused by someone else. This could have caused for the minor to not understand that this was not okay and/ or caused trauma which resulted in an impact of their mental health. With this prospective it could feel harsh to just have this person face the justice of the law and not receive mercy and help for something they didn’t realize was wrong.

It would be up to the social worker and other professionals of this case to be able to find a just but fair way to handle this case. The hope would be to find treatment for both minors to ensure healing and to be able to move forward with their lives. However, this will most likely prove harder to do than one might hope because of the complexity of the situation and the government that we are apart of.

Developmental Issue

Forensic social workers could have various ways in which they could be involved in this issue. They could be advocating for policy change to help reform prisons. They might have a client that they are working with on an individual level with increasing problems with their mental health. Their task might be involved with helping a specific prison have better structure that supports human dignity and just living standards. Regardless of the circumstance, social workers aim to uphold their duty of the profession to provide social justice and valuing the worth of every person. 

Serving time in prison can often be a consequence that comes from breaking the law. Because forensic social work deals with the intersection of social work and the law, it is highly likely that forensic social workers could face clients and cases that involve the prison system. While the hope for a prison sentence is to help a person face their crime but then eventually reintegrate into society. Studies are showing that prison is having a negative impact on their mental health, which in turn, can make it hard to integrate back to their society (Cunha et al., 2023).            

Conclusion

            The field of forensic social work is of great importance and plays a key role in society to help with the intersection of law and societies well-being. One who works in this field could experience challenging ethical dilemmas that will be hard to navigate. Therefore, it is in their best interest to understand the law and their code of ethics to know how to proceed. However, difficulties in the area of focus won’t just stop with ethical dilemmas, it will be found in the rising issues that are found in our societal laws and structures. Who better to tackle them then societies best advocates, social workers.  

 References

Cunha, O., Castro Rodrigues, A. D., Caridade, S., Dias, A. R., Almeida, T. C., Cruz, A. R., &

Peixoto, M. M. (2023). The impact of imprisonment on individuals’ mental health and society reintegration: study protocol. BMC psychology, 11(1), 215.

Finkelhor, D., Ormrod, R., & Chaffin, M. (2009). Juveniles who commit sex offenses against

minors. Juvenile justice bulletin.

Maschi, T., & Leibowitz, G. S. (Eds.). (2017). Forensic social work: Psychosocial and legal

issues across diverse populations and settings. Springer Publishing Company.

Mill, J. S. (2016). Utilitarianism. In Seven masterpieces of philosophy (pp. 329-375).                

            Routledge.

National Organization of Forensic Social Work. (n.d.). What is forensic social work.

https://www.nofsw.org/what-is-forensic-social-work-1

Weinstock, R., Darby, W. C., Candilis, P. J., Leong, G. B., & Piel, J. L. (2017). Forensic

psychiatric ethics. In Principles and practice of forensic psychiatry (pp. 95-108). CRC

Press.