From Carceral Questions to Anticarceral Outcomes: Reframing Social Work Research for the Next Century

Social work research has contributed to the development of policy, practice, and knowledge related to the criminal and juvenile legal systems. Yet, despite the profession’s ethical commitments to dignity, self-determination, and social justice, social work research has often reflected and reinforced carceral logics by centering surveillance, compliance, risk management, and recidivism as primary indicators of success. In this conceptual article, we introduce anticarceral social work research as a distinct research orientation that intentionally resists these assumptions across research design, collaboration, and knowledge translation. Rather than defining social problems through criminalization and individual risk, this framework prioritizes health, self-determination, and the long-term well-being of individuals, families, and communities. Drawing on emerging scholarship across social work and related disciplines, we illustrate how anticarceral research expands problem definitions, reorients outcome measurement, strengthens community-engaged collaborations, and advances research translation that reduces reliance on punishment while promoting community well-being. We also propose backward mapping as a practical strategy for aligning research questions, methods, partnerships, and dissemination with anticarceral goals. As Social Service Review enters its second century, we argue that social work research must move beyond refining carceral systems toward producing knowledge that advances collective care, structural transformation, and emancipatory futures.