The need for defender social workers has been increasingly recognized nationally,[1] but I discovered recently that in Washington State, 59 per cent of the counties report no use of social workers. Those counties have a long way to go to be able to meet the Washington State Bar Association Standards for Indigent Defense Services[2] that provide:
4.B. Mitigation Specialists, Social Workers
Mitigation specialists and social workers shall be made readily available to public defense attorneys to provide support, such as release plans, treatment services, housing, health care, and to develop dispositional and sentencing alternatives.
In public defense agencies, by July 3, 2028, a minimum of one full-time mitigation specialist or social worker shall be provided for every three full-time attorneys. Public defense agencies shall make meaningful progress towards this ratio prior to July 3, 2028.
NAPD has a similar policy statement:
Until empirical studies are further able to determine the number of staff necessary to support the lawyer, public defense systems, at a minimum, should provide one investigator for every three lawyers, one mental health professional, often a social worker, for every three lawyers, and one supervisor for every 10 lawyers.[3]
There are strong social work components in Washington, in King County’s Department of Public Defense[4] and Snohomish County’s Public Defender Association[5], and nationally, for example in Maryland’s Office of the Public Defender[6], Kentucky’s Department of Public Advocacy[7], San Francisco’s Public Defender[8], Miami/Dade County’s Public Defender [9], Harris County, Texas, Public Defender[10], and the Bronx Defenders[11].
I have been talking recently with defenders who are developing information to persuade their funders to support adding social workers/mitigation specialists to their offices. In the process, I have communicated with two former defender colleagues who now are judges. One is King County Superior Judge Mark Larranaga, who ran the Death Penalty Assistance Center in my former office, The Defender Association in Seattle. He said the following:
An accused’s social, economic, and psychological background is critically important in all aspects of the criminal justice system. Social workers possess the professional skill set to obtain, assess, and document an individual’s behavioral health symptoms and needs from several sources. Utilizing social workers to develop this comprehensive background information allows judges to better assess requests for pre-booking diversion, therapeutic intervention, and/or sentencing alternatives.
King County District Court Judge Kristin Shotwell, who was both a social work supervisor and an attorney supervisor at The Defender Association, added these observations to questions I asked about her experience:
As a judge, what do you find most helpful in information provided by defender social workers?
On a pre-trial basis, Defender social workers craft release plans to address housing and unmet treatment needs. As a judge, knowing that unmet treatment needs will be addressed pre-trial means the case will likely proceed more efficiently, and that the potential for criminal behavior will be reduced. Judges do not sentence case numbers. They sentence people. And judges need to know about the people they are sentencing in order to appropriately exercise their discretion. Judges have wide discretion in sentencing on misdemeanor cases. In most cases, they can impose no jail time or up to one year of jail time per charge. Defender social workers write pre-sentence reports that allow the sentencing judge to learn about the contributing factors to a person’s criminal behavior, and what sentence would likely reduce recidivism in the future. For a person who committed a crime while intoxicated, or who has unmet treatment needs, suspending jail time on the condition that a person completes treatment is a powerful tool to motivate their recovery and improve public safety.
*As a defender attorney, what were the three most helpful contributions from your social workers to providing effective representation to your clients?
Defender social workers conducted thorough psychosocial assessments which informed almost every aspect of a case. For example, their assessments helped me understand what physical and mental challenges my clients had, what type of sentencing alternative my clients might be eligible for, what type of expert I might need to employ, and how best to communicate with them and their families. Defender social workers converted those assessments into pre-trial release plans and post-conviction sentencing reports which in turn informed the judges before whom I appeared. They also informed the plea bargain process particularly when it related to therapeutic courts and therapeutic sentencing alternatives.
*As a defender social worker, what were your observations about the positive impact that you and your staff were able to make in helping clients?
The work ranged from release planning for a person held from repeated misdemeanor theft charges to death penalty mitigation. I observed release planning that targeted unmet treatment needs certainly reduced jail bookings and emergency room visits. In many cases defender social workers were able to work with clients to intervene in the recidivist cycle by connecting them with housing, education, and treatment. Defender social workers had a large impact by advocating for entry into a therapeutic court or for the imposition of a therapeutic sentencing alternative. Public defense clients who had social workers were more engaged with their attorney, missed fewer court appearances, and were more informed about the process. When defender social workers addressed housing, treatment, and mental health needs, the attorneys were able to spend more time focusing on the representation. This was true for criminal cases as well as dependency and involuntary treatment cases.
*Based on all of your experience, does the work of defender social workers help to reduce recidivism and reduce costs in the system as a whole?
Through their individualized pre-trial release planning and sentencing advocacy, Defender social workers reduce incarceration costs, emergency medical care costs, and lead to more efficient processing of cases. Defender social workers help keep clients engaged in their cases and connected with treatment they may need. Defender social workers address the behaviors, unmet needs, and circumstances that contributed to criminal behavior in the first place.
As defenders and their allies advocate for funding for social work, these comments from experienced judges will help educate funders.
Click For Sources Cited:
[1] See, ABA Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System (2023): “Public Defense Providers should have the assistance of investigators, social workers, mitigation specialists, experts, and other specialized professionals necessary to meet public defense needs.” Available at https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_aid_indigent_defendants/ls-sclaid-ten-princ-pd-web.pdf.
[2] WSBA Standards for Indigent Defense Services (2024), available at https://www.wsba.org/docs/default-source/legal-community/committees/council-on-public-defense/wsba-indigent-defense-standards-as-approved-by-bog-2024.03.08.pdf?sfvrsn=3c831ff1_5
[3] NAPD Policy Statement on Public Defense Staffing (May 2020), available at https://napd.connectedcommunity.org/communities/community-home/librarydocuments?LibraryKey=2a24dcde-351e-4312-af10-019e2c81aa5f&folder=11d39888-f09a-4636-8373-019e2c943667&fa07f2be-c763-4fc2-aa1a-2fa64504fa5c=eyJwYWdlaW5kZXgiOjAsImxpYnJhcnllbnRyeSI6ImRlMDAzNTIyLTQ3MmYtNDE4Ni1hMmM5LTAxOWUyYzg1ZjgyYSJ9.
[4] See blog post, Felony mitigation specialists at DPD, at https://kcemployees.com/2019/06/08/felony-mitigation-specialists-at-dpd/
[5] See, Bridging the Gap Between Incarceration, Court Involvement, and Community at https://www.snocopda.org/that-conviction-followed-me-everywhere-how-blake-decision-law-changed-one-mans-life-2/.
[6] See Maryland Defender web page at https://opd.state.md.us/social-work.
[7] See web page for Kentucky Defenders’ Alternative Sentencing Worker Program, available at https://dpa.ky.gov/kentucky-department-of-public-advocacy/about-dpa/asw/.
[8] See San Francisco Public Defender web page at https://sfpublicdefender.org/about-us/about-us/.
[9] See Miami Dade Defender web page on Intervention, Rehabilitation and Mitigation, available at https://www.pdmiami.com/public-defender/about-us/divisions-and-units.page.
[10] See Harris County Defenders web page at https://hcpdo.org/holistic-defense/.
[11] See Bronx Defenders web page at https://www.bronxdefenders.org/our-work/defending-new-yorkers/social-work/.