Is Criminal Justice Content Addressed in MSW Programs?

Overview: The American Academy of Social Work selected Smart Decarceration as one of the 13 Grand Challenges for the profession. Despite this, many MSW programs in the United States do not offer any specialized courses in the field of criminal justice.Proposal text: The criminal justice system in the United States (U.S.) functions in ways that are antithetical to the purpose and values of social work. This system preys upon the very structurally vulnerable and marginalized populations that social workers are dedicated to serving. These include the impoverished, the unhoused, the elderly, people living with disabilities, substance use and psychiatric disorders, and those from Black, Indigenous or People of Color (BIPOC) communities. Exposure to carceral systems exacerbates health and social inequities, which in turn, increases the risk of further exposure in a vicious cycle. The primary purpose of this paper is to provide an update on the extent to which criminal justice-related issues and topics are being addressed in CSWE accredited or in-candidacy programs in the U.S. The program content of 308 MSW programs in the U.S. that were either accredited or in-candidacy through CSWE in January 2021 were assessed to determine (1) whether program curricula offered dual or joint degree programs (in conjunction with the MSW degree) in a field related to criminal justice? (2) whether curricula offered any type of specialization or concentration in a criminal justice-related field? and (3) whether curricula offered any courses specific to criminal justice-related issues. The MSW programs were additionally classified by if they were in a public or private institution, as well as other institutional characteristics noted in the Carnegie Foundation Classification Report of the university. The classification of the universities includes doctoral granting institutions, master’s degree college or university and other college, university or institution. For doctorate-granting institutions the classification system is broken down into very high research activity, high research activity, doctoral/research institution. For master’s college or university, the classification system is broken down into large master’s programs, medium master’s programs, and small master’s program. The majority of the institutions that offered a MSW program were public institutions (n = 209, 68%). The majority were also classified by the Carnegie system as doctorate-granting institutions (n =175, 57%). Out of the doctorate-granting institutions, the plurality were very high research activity universities (n = 71), while the majority of the master’s college or university were categorized as large master’s programs (n = 84). Overall, the results show that most MSW programs do not cover criminal justice content. Less than one fourth of all programs had a dual degree or joint degree program (n = 54, 17.5%), a specialization or concentration (n = 17, 5.5%), or a course specific to criminal justice (n = 74, 24%). Simply put, there is not enough criminal justice content being offered through graduate social work education given the urgent need for competent social work practitioners in this area.