Difficulty on Social Work in the Criminal Justice Field

Analysis of Interview Results for 5 social worker occupations in the Criminal Justice System in Japan

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to integrate the grounded theories of difficulties faced by 5 social worker occupations in the Criminal Justice (Probation Officers and Rehabilitation coordinators in the Probation Office, Social Workers in Correctional Facilities, Regional Sustained Community Life Support Centers and ehabilitation facilities) in previous studies and to clarify common difficulties, and to give suggestions to the practical field and to present the elements that discuss the improvement of welfare support systems and measures in the framework of criminal justice in Japan. In this study, grounded theories of 5 occupations were integrated, 14 integration concepts were generated and converged into 5 categories. Then, 7 common concepts and 4 common categories of 5 occupations were revealed. In this study, we presented the difficulties that social workers in the Criminal Justice tend to face, including the background and factors, as explicit knowledge. Then, the dilemma between judiciary and welfare that social work in the Criminal Justice has historically and structurally is shown from the perspective of macro, meso and micro. This provided suggestions for predicting the difficulties that would be encountered in practice of social work.