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In the 1980s, feminist activism to challenge gender-based violence in the United States took a turn from radical grassroots formations towards institutions increasingly reliant on law enforcement. The embrace of policing as the guarantor of the safety of women and children became not only emblematic of US gender justice but also has been exported globally as a progressive form of anti-violence intervention. Since the turn of the millennium, a counter movement in the United States led primarily by feminists of colour has condemned what is now known as carceral feminism and promoted community-based, non-carceral responses to gender-based violence. Prison abolition as a framework for liberation and transformative justice and as a pathway to community safety, free from the violence of the state, has increasingly occupied the public imagination and emphasized new possibilities for community practice. Through the examination of the tensions within the US feminist anti-violence movement, this conceptual article reflects on the development of the carceral state, the emergence of abolition, and the implications for community organizing and community development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prison abolition has emerged as a new framework for critical analysis, policies, and practices with implications for social welfare. Mobilized through a series of social movement events and formations from the late 1990s, prison abolition has taken on public prominence since the summer of 2020 and unprecedented U.S. and global protests of racialized police violence. While proponents of abolition have called for the dismantling of the carceral state or that sphere of the state represented by policing, jails, and prisons, the implications for the welfare state have been less clear. This conceptual article provides an overview of the welfare state and its development since the New Deal, outlining critical debates regarding its contributions to well-being as well as its punitive functions. Building upon David Garland's categories of welfare state sectors, the article offers an initial framing and set of analytical questions for further inquiry into abolitionist informed frameworks and strategies with regard to the welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on positionality in critical feminist scholarship. Topics include considerations and questions focused on positionality to enhance our work as a board and the work of researchers, authors, and reviewers; and positionalities across race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, immigration status, religion, class, age, ability.

This case study discusses the Survivor-Centered Advocacy (SCA) Project, a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project that convened anti-violence advocates from culturally specific communities to design and implement research. The project used a unique approach to build grassroots research capacity and center survivors of intimate partner violence from historically marginalized communities. This approach coalesced into the creation of an exploratory Community-Led Research (CLR) framework that incorporated trauma-informed, research justice and language justice principles. The CLR framework responded to community members' desire to lead, rather than simply participate in, the research process. As a result, five studies were designed and executed by practitioners turned community-based researchers, most of whom had never before engaged in research, except as subjects. The CLR framework integrated the skills and experiences of community-based and external researchers, and led to high levels of engagement, rich data, more equitable research processes and innovative research projects., Author(s): Susan Ghanbarpour [sup.1] , Ada Palotai [sup.2] , Mimi E. Kim [sup.3] , Aracelia Aguilar [sup.4] , Juana Flores [sup.5] , Amber Hodson [sup.4] , Tara Holcomb [sup.4] , [...]

An editorial is presented on the challenges posed by neoliberalism in academia, particularly in the context of social work, and the focus on "productivity" as a measure of impact. The topics include the impact of external events on academic scholarship, the tension between capitalism publishing and ethical research, and the need to resist the quantification of impact that undermines meaningful contributions.

An interview with professor Mimi Abramovitz is presented. Topics include talks about readership that may be less familiar with the concept of social reproduction and its relationship to social welfare as the reader is a brief definition of social reproduction and examines the work of social reproduction related to the gender division of labor.

Introduction IN THE SUMMER OF 2006, A DRUMMING TEACHER FROM SOUTH Korea WAS INVITED TO teach a weeklong intensive drumming workshop at a Korean cultural community center in Oakland, California. [...]

An editorial is presented on New York City welfare workers including social service workers and clerical staff. Topics include social service blocking grants being introduced for reducing the flow of federal money to the states for funding social services; and stretching the workforce in ways leading to burnout, health and safety hazards, and low job satisfaction.

This paper aims to acknowledge essential matters to be taken under consideration when working with Muslim Americans in social services in an effort to provide culturally appropriate services and promote social justice. Interviews were conducted with service providers who identify themselves as formerly or currently Muslim and have previously or are currently working with Muslim Americans. The themes found were: 1) oppression, discrimination, and stereotypes; 2) consequences for social work; 3) help-seeking; and 4) providing culturally appropriate services. Recognition of service workers' insider perspectives of working with Muslims will offer further insight on providing culturally appropriate services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to the call to "shift the lens" and expand gender-based violence remedies beyond individualized direct services and law enforcement remedies, anti-violence providers have struggled to redefine and redirect intervention approaches. This implementation study leverages the framework of implementation science to investigate an exploratory statewide initiative based on the Creative Interventions model and aimed to build organizational and regional capacity to implement community-based or social network interventions within provider organizations. Using data from nine organizations, this mixed-methods study identifies factors related to implementation of this innovative approach including organizational motivation, capacity, and perceived needs related to adoption and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses social work's place in the movement to "defund the police." We argue that social work's collaboration with police and use of policing constitutes carceral social work. In defining carceral social work, we specify the ways in which coercive and punitive practices are used to manage Black, Indigenous, other people of color, and poor communities across four social work arenas – gender-based violence, child welfare, schools, and health and mental health. To inform anti-carceral social work, we provide examples of interventions in these arenas that dismantle police collaborations and point to life-affirming, community-centered, and mutual aid alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History reveals that the pathway toward carceral feminism was fraught with contradictions. Feminist reform strategies that appeared progressive devolved into mandates contributing to the policies of mass incarceration; frameworks meant to disavow racist myths of violence inherent to communities of color fueled color-blind narratives that cloaked white, middle-class-defined social movement priorities; safety strategies protecting survivors of violence entrapped them into set options violating the right to self-determination. Today's account of carceral feminism reveals well-intentioned choices leading to often ill-fated outcomes. As the critique of carceral feminism seeps into the discourse of the feminist anti-violence movement, a shift toward new values, policies, and practices holds the possibility of radical new directions. However, there is no reason to assume that this new pathway will be so straightforward. This article centers the dynamic of contradiction to synthesize insights of post-Marxist thought in application to contemporary anti-carceral feminist trends represented by transformative justice options. It also reflects on the recent ascendance of restorative justice and a renewed potential for carceral co-optation. The aim is to illuminate troubled areas of revision and radical alternatives and better navigate inevitable ethical and pragmatic tensions that may define future social movement trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]