A SOCIAL WELFARE APPROACH TO DECARCERATION
Leah Jacobs
The U.S. prison population has grown 500% since 1973, and recent policy discussions have explored ways to control and reduce this trend. A Pitt social work scholar is working to understand how and why the country turned to hyperincarceration to address social problems—and how we can use social interventions to reduce incarceration and enhance public safety.
Her recent work focuses on the ways law enforcement interacts with the public, especially young people.
“We know that one of the greatest predictors of incarceration is prior experience in juvenile legal systems, so if we want to stop incarceration and reincarceration, we need to intervene when people are first introduced into the system,” says Leah Jacobs, associate professor in the School of Social Work.
She collaborates with Strategies for Youth, a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to test a program to teach law enforcement personnel about typical adolescent behaviors that may be mistaken for criminality or disrespect to police, such as displaying autonomy, impressing peers and being impulsive. The intervention team wants police to learn how to recognize these normal aspects of adolescent development and how they influence interactions.
The project offers train-the-trainer education to help police build skills to divert and de-escalate, such as allowing youth to save face, using humor selectively and building relationships in the community. Training includes five modules with didactic training, role playing and teach-back led by mental health experts, former police and legal experts. Trainers then return to their departments to train their peers. The team aims to implement the program across 21 police departments. The project is funded by the National Institute of Justice and conducted in conjunction with Community Partners in the Contra Costa County, California, Department of Probation.
“We know that one of the greatest predictors of incarceration is prior experience in juvenile legal systems, so if we want to stop incarceration and reincarceration, we need to intervene when people are first introduced into the system.”
Although the issue of hyperincarceration requires collaboration among many disciplines, Jacobs believes social welfare scholars are essential to these efforts because they see issues through a unique lens, both the individual’s and society’s role.