Developing Curriculum for Criminal Justice Social Work from the Field

There is a dearth of indigenously developed theories in areas such as criminal justice and social work. Prayas, a field action project of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India, has drawn from its social workers’ field experiences and has been working on a certificate programme on social work in criminal justice which is now being further developed into a diploma programme. This chapter highlights the context, process and tensions while using the field as a site for curricula-building. It tries to establish that praxis can play a significant role in decolonising social work curricula and developing indigenous literature.