Role of community-based organizations in countering carceral logics: Comparing two caring profession organizations in Chicago

ABSTRACT

The work of community-based organizations (CBOs), organizations that represent a particular community, can be an impetus for social change and advocacy. By drawing on the institutional entrepreneurship perspective, this study seeks to understand how CBOs attempt to challenge dominant carceral logics (referred to as a punishment-oriented mind-set) in operation across two fields: (1) the public-school system and (2) human service providers that work with sex workers. Utilizing a comparative case study design in the city of Chicago, this study discusses how CBOs leverage their legitimacy and relationships to identify contradictions within the carceral logics in city-wide fields and promote alternative solutions, namely restorative justice in public schools and decriminalization of sex work. CBO strategies and goals differed based on their field position and existing support, so we discuss how CBOs can advance alternate logics and promote change depending on their contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Community-based organizations
• carceral logics
• institutional entrepreneurs
• comparative case study
• legitimacy

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the reviewers and others who have reviewed our paper and provided us excellent feedback to improve on this paper. We’d also like to thank our research participants in Chicago, without whom none of this research would be possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aditi Das

Aditi Das is a Senior Consultant at RDA Consulting, a mission driven consulting firm based in Oakland, California, focused on strengthening public health and human service systems. Her work focuses on the implementation, assessment and evaluation of social safety net programming and other innovative public policies. Her work has also been published in Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership and Governance, Families in Society, Social Policy Administration, among others. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration (now the Crown Family School) in 2017 and completed her post-doctoral education from the Mack Center on Nonprofit and Public Sector Management in the Human Services at the School of Social Work, University of California, Berkeley.

Theresa Anasti

Theresa Anasti is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Her work focuses on how human service providers work with criminalized and stigmatized populations (such as sex workers, drug users and the homeless), and how this service provision aligns with what these populations say that they need. Her work has also been published in Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organization, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership and Governance, among others. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration (now the Crown Family School) in 2017.

Rachel Wells

Rachel Wells is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Lewis University. Her research examines assumptions about poverty that shape social services and the role of community-based organizations in low-income neighborhoods and she has worked with grassroots organizations and housing justice efforts as part of her research. Her work has also been published in Voluntas: International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations, Children and Youth Services Review, and the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research.