Social Work within Justice Systems: The Perspective of a Formerly Incarcerated Person

Kevin Blumenberg, was born and raised on Chicago’s south and east sides. At the young age of 16 he was incarcerated as a juvenile and quickly learned how to survive in an unfamiliar and callous environment. For more than 29 years, he survived the daily life of incarceration during which time he studied and received certificates in anger management, effective decision making, conflict resolution, and 28 others. He earned his high school diploma, became a peer educator and became certified by the Illinois Department of Public Health to provide peer education on sexually transmitted infections.

Since his release from prison, Mr. Blumenburg has worked as a community navigator for Acclivus, Inc., a community organization that delivers violence intervention and reentry services, and as a lead organizer for Parole Illinois. He was also instrumental in helping to get the Pre-trial Fairness Act passed in Illinois through his work as a canvasser for The People’s Lobby. He is a 2020 Urban Scholar Fellow in the Free to Excel program at the Jane Addams Center for Social Policy and Research and strongly believes education is essential to helping yourself and others in society.

In the following interview, Mr. Blumenberg shared his views on social work within justice systems, from his perspective as someone with lived experience in the criminal justice system.

Do you think it is important for social work programs to have faculty with experience working within justice systems?

Yes. We need to think about the four functions of social work, developmental, preventative, correctional, and curative. We also have to remember that one of the most important things a social worker does is restoration. When you have individuals who are coming home as returning citizens and they are trying to acclimate, everything begins with the social worker in terms of determining mental health needs, social needs, or personal needs. So, it is important for social workers to have experience or understanding with what it means to be incarcerated, and what that means in terms of meeting clients’ needs. Otherwise, people are coming home from prison and walking through a system that is not welcoming to them.

What services can social workers provide to people preparing to reenter the community?

The number one issue for returning citizens is that they may have had mental health issues prior to incarceration, and while in prison those issues are not being met. Mostly because when you look at the ratio of social workers to people incarcerated, it is very unbalanced. One of the things people will need coming home after a substantial period of incarceration is mental health or substance use services. You’ll have a large percentage of returning citizens needing those services. Without proper preparation or support, those pre-existing mental health issues can become exacerbated after release.

Other individuals may not have mental health issues but will lack a support system. If they’ve done more than 20 years, the chances of many family members being around are slim, and they need alternative ways of coping and dealing with rehabilitation and reacclimating. And that goes back to social workers, who need to understand how many people lack a social network on the outside. These people may not have extensive education or extensive work experience, and a skilled social worker can work with them to see what strengths they have that can be used to put them in a better social position.

It is also important for social workers to be able to talk with prison administration or other people who run the prison industrial complex, and work with them to start carving out a pathway for returning citizens. We shouldn’t wait until one or two years after they’ve returned to start working on this game plan, it needs to start while they are still in prison. This is what will help them long-term. For example, while I was in prison, I worked in the kitchen and as a porter. In a conversation I once had with a warden, he said that the new direction in prisons is to have programs, and I had to explain to him that jobs function the same way as programs. I don’t have an extensive education or job history, and when I go home I can put down that I worked as a janitor or in the kitchen, but if I don’t have access to other jobs, it limits my economic possibilities when I return, and this can increase recidivism. This is something that social workers can help with.

What do social workers need to understand about serving people who are incarcerated?

It is difficult for people to make a decision about your life if they don’t see you as being human. People who don’t see you as human are never going to make a decision that is in your best interest. This also starts with the social workers. Social workers have to view you as being an individual, with individual experiences, and not less deserving because you’re incarcerated. They need to understand the experience of being incarcerated, no matter why someone is in prison. We have to change our view of people who are incarcerated because one day they will return to their community. Again, I would ask if we want people returning home to be better off or worse off than when they went in. And if you want people to be better off, then that requires understanding the carceral system and what it means to be incarcerated. Social workers need to have that knowledge.

Some people are critical of social workers who work within the criminal or juvenile justice systems. What is your opinion about that?

The system has not been abolished yet, and even as we work to achieve that goal it is important for social workers to work in the system. As long as we have a carceral system, we need social workers in place. People say they want to abolish the prison industrial complex, and I agree with them, we shouldn’t continue to invest in a system that hasn’t worked. You know the old saying that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a sign of insanity? Well, we’re not insane. But if we do expect different results, we have to think differently about how we approach these issues. While we are attempting to change the system, social workers are extremely important to supporting individuals and who are prepared to develop programs or a game plan for returning to society.

Part of the problem is that social workers are not always oriented toward being co-active or developing a plan that will produce the results we want to see. And part of this is because of staffing; there are too few social workers in the system. When I was in prison, we may have had two, three, or at most four social workers serving a prison population of about 1,000 people. We need to have more social workers in the system, not fewer, and they need to be properly trained to work with this population and in that environment. The prison counselors can only go so far; there’s a limit on what they can do. A social worker with the proper training and proper orientation should be able to touch your life from all points, socially, economically, emotionally, and mentally. A good social worker can help you come out of prison prepared to win.

Is there anything else you’d like people to know about this topic?

Social workers have the ability and responsibility to begin the healing process for incarcerated individuals. So many people in the system have been forgotten, neglected, or abandoned, and social workers have the ability to mend those bridges and help families heal. Again, if we want returning citizens to be better off than when they went in, then we should give a lot of attention to the responsibilities of being a social worker, and get behind them, and give them all the tools and training they will need. We can’t just put a band aid on this issue. And we have to remember those four functions of social work: development, prevention, correction, and curing. The curative responsibility also relates to restoration and, as far as I know, the warden can’t do that and the correctional officers can’t do that. Restoration starts with the social worker.