Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Purpose. Although social work admissions applications generally ask applicants whether they have ever been convicted of a crime, few have specific guidelines for how to evaluate candidates with criminal convictions and data to help assess their acceptability to field agencies. This study examines the level of risk agencies associated with different offenses and identifies mitigating factors that might lead an agency to accept the placement of a convicted felon. We predicted that the perception of risk is influenced by the nature of the crime, by ameliorating factors related to the crime as well as the agency's tolerance for the agency.

Methods In order to better understand the decision process by which felons are accepted by an agency for field placement, several scales were piloted and refined to assess perceived risk related to several classes of offenses. Field supervisors (N = 272) from diverse agencies reported their judgments about their likelihood of accepting such an applicant, along several dimensions. These dimensions included the type of crime, personal characteristics of the applicant, and possibly mitigating factors. Of the respondents, 196 (80.3%) were female and 48 (19.7%) were male. Respondents varied by their role in their agency, with 100 (40.7%) describing themselves as clinicians, 73 (29.7%) as administrators, 32 (13%) as supervisors, and the remaining 41 (16.7%) as some combination of these roles. Scales. For drug-related, property, violent, and other offenses, respondents were asked to identify 1) the offense they felt represented the highest risk to the agency if placed 2) the offenses for which they would reject an applicant out of hand and 3) the ameliorating factors that mitigate risk and lead them to admit an otherwise unacceptable applicant. Results The offenses most likely to render an applicant unacceptable were homicide (91.3% ), kidnapping ( 79.2%), arson (47.5%), child sexual abuse (65.4%), drug manufacturing (51.4%), and drug dealing (40.9%). Regression analyses are used to test more complex predictive models. Time since the applicant's release and evidence of rehabilitation predict the likelihood of acceptance. The effect of these ameliorating factors differed based on the type of crime, with the greatest effect shown for the non-violent crimes, drug and property offenses Across all categories of crime, respondents who relied principally on the type of crime to index risk cited significantly more infractions as a reason for rejecting applicants and fewer mitigating circumstance that would lead them to change their minds than those who looked to personal characteristics to index risk, (p<.05). Females were significantly more likely than males to fall in the former category. .

Implications for practice or policy. For a majority of field supervisors, the nature of an applicant's crime weighs significantly in the decision to accept the applicant for a field placement internship. However, time since the applicant's release and evidence of rehabilitation also play important roles. The results suggest that the field may be ready for some felons but that for those involve in violent and drug related crimes, gaining acceptance is difficult.