Overview
Current Projects
Community Diversion Program
Research:
What We’ll Learn:
Research Team:
Access to Justice Lab
Toledo Municipal Court
Mother Up
Research:
What We’ll Learn:
Research Team:
Access to Justice Lab
Mothers Outreach Network
Social Work in Public Defense
Research:
The Problem: Since the formation of public defender offices, defense attorneys have sometimes incorporated social workers into the criminal defense team. More recently, some social worker involvement has extended to the provision of services that go beyond the clients’ legal needs. A minority of states (about 14) currently make use of this holistic defense approach, and some are working to expand their use of social workers. Other states are considering whether to adopt a holistic defense approach that incorporates social workers. But there is no credible evidence that incorporating social workers into the criminal defense team, as opposed to advising defendants to make use of social services available in their communities, improves either criminal justice outcomes or improves defendant quality of life. There is also no evidence to suggest that lawyers allocate scarce social worker resources well.
The Questions: Does integrating social work services into the public defense team reduce recidivism and improve other outcomes for defendants? How well do public defenders determine which defendants would most be helped by a social worker?
The Study: Working with Sarah Buchanan, Director of Social Services at the Knox County Public Defender’s Community Law Office, the A2J Lab has designed a four-site, double-randomized evaluation to be implemented in multiple jurisdictions in Tennessee. In all four sites (Jackson, Franklin, Kingston, and Knox Counties), the RCT will investigate whether outcomes with a social worker as part of the criminal defense team are different from those where defendants are invited to take advantage of social workers in their communities. In Knox County, after attorneys make a provisional decision regarding incorporation of a social worker into the criminal defense team, the A2J Lab will randomize each potential client into one of two groups (the first level of randomization). In the first group, the attorney’s decision will be followed; in the second group, a random decision will replace the attorney’s. Among that second group, a computer-based randomizer will “decide” whether the defendant will be offered a social worker as part of the criminal defense team. In the other three counties, a randomizer will determine whether the defendant is offered a social worker as part of the criminal defense team; these three counties will not evaluate attorney triage decisions. In all the sites, the study team will follow various outcomes for each participant, including recidivism, for two years after randomization.
What We’ll Learn: The RCT design will discover how effective incorporating a social worker into the criminal defense team is at decreasing recidivism as well as housing insecurity, unemployment, and other risk factors for future criminal behavior. The double randomization in Knox County will also determine how successful lawyers are at determining which clients would most benefit from the scarce social worker resources.
Research Team: Sarah Buchanan (formerly of TN Pub Def Office)
April Faith-Slaker, Executive Director, Texas Access to Justice Commission