Defund Social Workers. They’re often just cops by another name.

Jasmine Wali, the director of advocacy at JMacForFamilies, explained, “Social workers are still going to put people in jail if they’re in crisis,” if that crisis isn’t easy to handle, and they can’t “just talk the person down.” In homeless shelters, staff members trained in social work call the police “on everything,” just as they do in group homes for children in the foster care system “if a child misses curfew, or a child is throwing things or having a tantrum.” Social workers administer urinalyses or other drug tests, which can result in people losing eligibility for social services. In the family court system, so much of what they do “is like parole work,” said another social worker I spoke to. Between 2000 and 2020, among 54 cases of people arrested for self-managing or helping self-manage an abortion, 6 percent were reported to the police by social workers, according to a report by If/When/How.

View the full The New Republic article here.