Date of Award

5-1-2024

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

School of Social Welfare

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Sarah Mountz

Committee Members

Carmen Morano, Alan Dettlaff

Keywords

Abolition, Criminal Justice, Family Policing, Harm Reduction, Substance Use, Systems Involvement

Subject Categories

Social Work

Abstract

Individuals, families, and communities who use drugs or have a history of substance use have been highly criminalized, stigmatized, and their perspectives marginalized in research and policy. Furthermore, trajectories of research on this community tend to focus on pathologizing individuals and focus on prevention or abstinence-based outcomes, failing to embrace a broader critique of societal forces that marginalize communities and contribute to substance use. Despite the increase in deaths due to drug toxicity, policy and practice at large have failed to embrace the expertise of those with lived experience using substances, and instead continued to rely on carceral logics to police, surveillance, and marginalize people who use drugs or have a history of substance use. Harm from these tactics are further multiplied by marginalized identities, with individuals possessing non-dominant identities facing harsher forms of state violence. This three-paper dissertation aims to disrupt this harmful trajectory of practice, policy, and research, by understanding the perspectives of individuals who have a substance use history and have been impacted by a system (criminal justice, juvenile justice, or family policing). Further, this research hopes to integrate the perspectives of these individuals into social work practice, policy, and research. This dissertation also aims to explore this community's experience within drug and alcohol treatment settings. A final aim was to identify alternative mechanisms of healing and empowerment, outside of mainstream recovery models. The first paper explores quantitative data surrounding the experience and impact of system(s) impacted individuals in a traditional drug and alcohol treatment setting. Findings from this paper include a regression analysis which highlighted that system(s) impact was a predictor for shorter lengths of stay in treatment and not completing treatment. Findings further reinforce the need for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to explore, understand, and work to resist the long-lasting harms perpetuated by punitive and carceral policy. The second paper explores the impact of system(s) on the community's overall well-being from their perspective, elucidating those individuals felt harmed, exploited, and not rehabilitated by system involvement. These findings highlight the need for exploration of alternative mechanisms of healing and rehabilitation. This paper calls for a more critical and emancipatory approach to substance use treatment and working with communities that have been impacted by the drug war. The third and final paper creates space for further exploration of different aspects of stigma felt by this community. Using a photography method known as photovoice, participants explored individual, public, and systemic forms of stigma that they experienced as a result of being system(s) involved and having a substance use history. Furthermore, participants explored what healing and recovery looked like to them, challenging medical model norms and abstinence-only-based theories. Findings from this study highlight the vast, intersectional, and harmful forms of oppression that communities face because of the criminalization of substance use and the carceral response. This project amplifies the expert knowledge of community members themselves about this experience, as well as adds to the discourse surrounding the need for more expansive conceptions of healing and recovery. This work fills the gap in the literature of lived experience and expert knowledge and adds to the call for ending punitive and disciplinary responses to substance use in our society at large. It challenges the social work profession as a whole to reconceptualize its relationship with policing and surveillance agencies and demands a shift in social work approaches to education, practice, and policy, to have meaningful inclusion of community voice.

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