PENITENTIARY SOCIAL WORK FROM AN AGENTIC PERSPECTIVE

Authors

  • Sorina POLEDNA

Keywords:

prison, social work, agency, rehabilitation, accountability

Abstract

Starting from the characteristics of the prison and the implications of the restriction of liberty, the role of social work and the specific profile of the social worker in the penitentiary is discussed regarding the „passing ritual” of the prisoner from the experience of detention to community life. For this purpose, his accountability becomes an important dimension around which convergent efforts can be matched to his/her rehabilitation and social reintegration. The accountability of the persons deprived of their liberty is seen not as an end in itself, but as a multi-level construction, in different areas of society, aiming at multiple and complementary ends. These steps to accountability, we analyse them from an agentic perspective, from the concept of agency, a construct that implies a set of qualities that contribute to the personal competence and the force of an autonomously engaged person, in a deep and long-term pro-social change.

Author Biography

Sorina POLEDNA

Assoc.Prof.,Social Work Department, Babes-Bolyai University, M. Kogălniceanu str., No 4, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

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Additional Files

Published

20-12-2019