Social Work Licensure with a Criminal Record: A Legal Mapping Project of 56 U.S. States and Territories

This legal mapping paper aims to aggregate state-specific policies on the impact of criminal legal system contact—more specifically, the impact of criminal convictions—on social work licensure. Situating these policies within an abolitionist analysis and the larger history of social work in the United States, the paper attempts to expose the contradictions alive within the profession’s discourse. Social work discourses claim to value lived experience, yet social work licensure policies and practices often exclude the people and communities who, by lived experience, are uniquely qualified to do this work. Examining the language of these policies, this study poses questions concerning the ways that social work’s governing bodies gatekeep the profession through both implicit and explicit means. The research team found that in 2025, 35 state/territorial statutes required licensing boards to conduct criminal records background checks on social work licensure applicants. Fifty-three of the 56 jurisdictions (94.6%) specified that a criminal conviction—felony or misdemeanor—on an applicant’s record could lead to license denial. Across jurisdictions, convictions that could result in license denial ranged across misdemeanors and felonies. These findings are discussed within the context of rising criminalization in the United States, ongoing gatekeeping and licensure disparities within social work, and the recent proliferation of fair chance laws, which are intended to protect individuals with criminal records from discrimination on the basis of their criminal legal system contact. Using the data from this research as a starting point, this article offers an abolitionist critique of social work licensure and the restrictions accompanying it.