Latin American Social Work in the Justice System


Book Description

Social work has long been working directly with the criminal and civil courts of the justice system. The work of Latin American practitioners in the legal system, however, is little known at global and local levels. This book is the first to go beyond Western-centric appraisals and presents a truly Latin American portrait of social work in the justice system. The long-term interaction of social work practitioners with the judicial system enabled them to develop an expertise to dialogue with other disciplines such as law and psychology. This knowledge is very important to identify and share with other professionals to develop specialized programs for education and training. In this sense, positive and negative experiences of social work in the justice system allow one to improve its practice. It is crucial to identify local experiences and the great dilemmas that the profession faces on this subject. The volume's chapters deal with these dynamics in Latin American countries including: Forensic Social Work: The construction of possible ways of the criminal intervention Socio-Legal Social Work in the Field of Criminal Defense Family and Community Life: Contributions of Social Work to the Debate in Family Courts Support to Victims in High-conflict Scenarios: An approach from the socio-legal, the pedagogical, and the care perspectives The Assessment of Child and Adolescent Sexual Abuse Allegations from a Social Work Perspective Latin American Social Work in the Justice System is essential reading for students, researchers, academicians, policymakers, and practitioners who are interested in international social work with a special focus on Latin American countries and legal culture. Students and scholars in law, development studies, and public policy as well as psychologists working with and interested in the judicial system would also find this book a useful resource.




Hispanics in the U.S Criminal Justice System


Book Description

This updated and expanded new edition resumes the theme of the first edition, and the findings reveal that race, ethnicity, gender, class, and several other variables continue to play a significant and consequential role in the legal decision-making process. The book is structured into three sections, each of which corresponds to a different body of work on Latinos. Section One explores the historical dynamics and influence of ethnicity in law enforcement, and focuses on how ethnicity impacts policing field practices, such as traffic stops, use of force, and the subsequent actions that police departments have employed to alleviate these problems. A detailed examination of critical issues facing Latino defendants seeks to better understand the law enforcement process. The history of immigration laws as it pertains to Mexicans and Latinos explains how Mexicans have been excluded from the United States through anti-immigrant legislation. Latino officers must cope with structural and political issues, the community, and media, as these practices and experiences within the American police system are explored. Section Two focuses on the repressive practices against Mexicans that resulted in executions, vigilantism, and mass expulsions. The topic of Latinos and the Fourth Amendment reveals that the constitutional right of people to be protected against unreasonable searches and seizures has been eviscerated for Latinos, and particularly for Mexicans. Possible remedies to existing shortcomings of the court system when processing indigent defendants are presented. Section Three studies the issue of Hispanics and the penal system. The ethnic realities of life behind bars, probation and parole, the legacy of capital punishment, and life after prison are discussed. Section Four addresses the globalization of Latinos, social control, and the future of Latinos in the U.S. Criminal justice system. Lastly, the race and ethnic experience through the lens of science, law, and the American imagination, are explored, concluding with policy recommendations for social and criminal justice reform, and ultimately humanizing differences. Written for professionals and students of law enforcement, this book will promote the understanding of the historical legacy of brutality, manipulation, oppression, marginalization, prejudice, discrimination, power and control, and white America's continued fear about racial and ethnic minorities.




Social Work Practice with Latinos


Book Description

Latinos are now the largest ethnic minority population in the United States and still they encounter a great deal of misunderstanding, prejudice, and discrimination. Utilizing a strengths-based perspective, Social Work Practice with Latinos addresses the unique needs of this diverse population. Written by practitioners and scholars from many disciplines, this book discusses social issues of consequence to Latinos and specific strengths and risk factors of the Latino community. They then offer methods that utilize these strengths to ensure a culturally-competent approach to practice with Latino populations. Each chapter is accompanied by key questions for personal and group reflection to facilitate discussion and understanding of these vital themes. The editors have nearly three decades of combined experience working with Latino populations inside and outside the United States. Drawing on this experience, they integrate these varied perspectives to prepare students and practitioners for practice with this richly diverse community.




Legal Experiments for Development in Latin America


Book Description

This book provides a nuanced picture of how diverse legal debates on the pursuit of economic development and modernization have played out in Latin America since independence. The opposing concepts of modernization theory and Dependency Theory can be seen to be playing out within the field of legal transformation, as some legal analysts define law as a closed, formal, rational system, and others see law as inseparable from economic, social and political change. Legal experiments have followed these trends, in some cases using legal instruments to guarantee classical, civil and political rights, and in others demanding radical transformation of existing legal structures. This book traces these debates across the key topics of: economic development and foreign investment; property; resource and power distribution in terms of gender and social policy. Drawing on a wide range of literature, the book adds complexity and color to our understanding of these themes in Latin America. This insightful exploration of comparative law within Latin America provides the tools needed to understand legal transformation in the region, and as such will be of interest to researchers within law, political sociology, development and Latin American studies.




Multicultural Perspectives In Social Work Practice with Families


Book Description

Multicultural Perspectives in Social Work Practice with Families is in its thirdedition and continues to expand the depth and breadth with which culturemay be understood and the impact of culture in working with families.Congress, Gonzalez, and their contributors have updated this text to includea focus on evidence-based practice, 10 additional chapters, revision of avaluable assessment tool, and a culturagram. This book clearly is an essentialresource for social workers committed to culturally sensitive practice."--Journal of Teaching in Social Work Encompassing the most current issues faced by multicultural families across the lifespan and the social workers who serve them, this popular textbook contains ten new chapters and provides content that has been significantly expanded throughout. These new and reconceived chapters offer professors and social work graduate students a broader and more comprehensive take on the key issues that arise when treating families from diverse cultural backgrounds and current, evidence-based models for assessment and treatment. New chapters include: Evidence-based models of care for ethnically-diverse families Practice with Asian-American families Practice with Native American and indigenous families Practice with Hispanic families Practice with Arab families Practice with adolescents Practice with families when there is risk of suicide Practice with families dealing with substance use and abuse Practice with families around health issues Legal issues with immigrants Contributors to the text are leaders in the field of multicultural issues that encompass a wide range of racial and ethnic populations. Updated case studies, vignettes, and statistical data illustrate the book's content.




Introduction to Social Work


Book Description

Introduction to Social Work by Lisa E. Cox, Carolyn J. Tice, and Dennis D. Long is an exciting and timely new text that takes readers to the roots of the social work profession, framing its history, practice settings, and career paths through the lens of advocacy. Closely aligned with the latest Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS), the text goes beyond standard coverage to explore such cutting-edge content as military social work, environmental issues, global/international social work, housing, and more. Robust, applied pedagogy and an emphasis on advocacy and reflective practice help underscore the transformative opportunities and contributions of social work on clinical, client, community, national, and international levels.




Handbook of Latin American Studies, Vol. 61


Book Description

"The one source that sets reference collections on Latin American studies apart from all other geographic areas of the world.... The Handbook has provided scholars interested in Latin America with a bibliographical source of a quality unavailable to scholars in most other branches of area studies." —Latin American Research Review Beginning with volume 41 (1979), the University of Texas Press became the publisher of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, the most comprehensive annual bibliography in the field. Compiled by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress and annotated by a corps of more than 140 specialists in various disciplines, the Handbook alternates from year to year between social sciences and humanities. The Handbook annotates works on Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Guianas, Spanish South America, and Brazil, as well as materials covering Latin America as a whole. Most of the subsections are preceded by introductory essays that serve as biannual evaluations of the literature and research under way in specialized areas. The Handbook of Latin American Studies is the oldest continuing reference work in the field. Lawrence Boudon, of the Library of Congress Hispanic Division, has been the editor since 2000, and Katherine D. McCann has been assistant editor since 1999. The subject categories for Volume 61 are as follows: AnthropologyEconomicsGeographyGovernment and PoliticsPolitical EconomyInternational RelationsSociology




The Routledge International Handbook of Social Work Teaching


Book Description

This handbook is a comprehensive text on social work education based on the narratives of social work educators, practitioners, and researchers from Asia and the Pacific, North and South America, Australia and Oceania, and Europe. It discusses innovations, challenges, pedagogy, and tested methods of social work teaching at various levels of educational programmes. The volume: Examines key concepts that underpin debates concerning social work teaching, research, and practice Brings out key concerns, debates, and narratives concerning various teaching, learning, and pedagogical methods from different countries Documents principal perspectives of different stakeholders involved in social work education – from educators and practitioners to novice social workers The Routledge International Handbook of Social Work Teaching will be an effective instrument in informing policy decisions related to social work teaching and pedagogy at the global and local levels. It will be essential for educators, researchers, and practitioners within social work institutions and for professional associations around the world.




Social Work in the Age of Disconnection


Book Description

This edited text brings together the stories of nine clinical social workers working during COVID-19, exploring the disconnections caused by a forced use of technology as well as the disconnections apparent in a time of social injustice. Employing narrative strategies to capture this transformative moment of our history, these chapters explore the effects of technology and social media on psychotherapy, the delivery of services for the chronically mentally ill and elderly, as well as the consequences of recent cultural shifts on our conceptions of gender, sexuality, race, the immigrant experience, and political activism. While traditional research methodologies tend to address social problems as if they were divorced from the lives and experiences of human beings, these chapters employ phenomenological description of how the existing system functions, to identify theory-to-practice gaps and to recover the experiences of the person within the various institutional structures. Divided into three parts, each chapter begins with pre-reading and close reading questions and ends with writing prompts, allowing for practitioners and students to examine their own thoughts, and put what they have learnt into practice. Suitable for students of clinical social work and practicing mental health professionals, this book is essential for those wanting to make sense of social work practice in our constantly evolving times.




Social Work Practice


Book Description

Replete with numerous diagrams, charts, tables, and exercises, the second edition of Social Work Practice: A Systems Approach brings alive the systems model of social work practice. Learning systems analysis will lead you to a more dynamic view of reality. With this book as a guide, you are sure to give your social work practice the overhaul it needs. This user-friendly text will allow you to integrate micro and macro modes of intervention, sensitize your practice, enhance your conflict resolution skills, and analyze system-environment structures and currents.The basis for popular ecological models in current social work literature, the systems model can be used to understand social change, to plan or direct social change, and to analyze environmental impacts on human growth and behavior. As Social Work Practice: A Systems Approach explains, the systems model is appropriate for international social work because it is applicable across cultural and societal boundaries. This book provides you with specific system-based intervention steps, descriptions of problem situations, and an understanding of practice theory for your social work practice. A key resource for educators, students, and practitioners, it discusses: creating an effective network of social services the implications of ecological theory for social work practice eco-mapping systems-oriented concepts in the social sciences and social work the individual person as a system managing social change and conflict processes gleaning effective strategies from existing practice models With its outline of a one-semester master's level course in systems analysis and its discussion of the 20th-century paradigm shift from reductionism to wholeness, Social Work Practice: A Systems Approach will be a great asset to social workers both within and beyond the classroom. Those in other helping professions, such as education, psychology, and organization development, will also find this book vital to understanding the changes experienced during the last 30 years. You will discover how many systems-based professional social work roles and strategies are compatible with existing models.