Social Work Policing: An Embedded Autonomous Model

This study is a small-n case study that inductively builds a theory of embedded autonomous social work policing. Embedded autonomous social work policing is a proposed model of social work policing that entails Master Social Work (MSW) social workers being at once embedded and trained within police departments while remaining hired, funded, and answerable to the human services bureaucracy in a locality. The main site of application of the theory of embedded autonomy to social work policing involves co-responder calls for service wherein both a social work expert and a law enforcement officer are necessitated owing to the gray i.e. potentially non-criminal or potentially criminal nature of the call for service depending on the success of de-escalation techniques or the lack thereof. The costs and benefits of the implementation of an embedded autonomous model of social work policing is inductively built through a case study analysis of three cases of social work policing involving fieldwork research. The three cases analyzed are Alexandria Police Department in Alexandria, Kentucky; Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS) in Eugene, Oregon; and Crisis Avoidance Response Efforts (CARE) 7 in Tempe, Arizona.