000014611 001__ 14611
000014611 005__ 20251202151258.0
000014611 02470 $$2doi$$ahttps://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14030121
000014611 037__ $$aTEXTUAL
000014611 037__ $$bArticle
000014611 041__ $$aeng
000014611 245__ $$aThe Survival Line: A Case Study in Anti-Carceral Community-Based Hotline Work
000014611 269__ $$a2025-02-20
000014611 336__ $$aArticle
000014611 520__ $$aCommunity members seeking alternatives to policing have played a substantive role in promoting safety and responding to harm for decades. The Survival Line was formed as a volunteer-run hotline to respond to community members’ concerns about neighborhood crime or police misconduct. It was established in the summer of 1970 as a mechanism for gathering data while also referring callers to community resources like pro bono attorneys and low-cost social services. It ran as a 24/7 hotline staffed entirely by volunteers from the Action for Survival coalition, a group of community-based organizations, which included the Chicago Urban League. Using historical analytic methods, this study asks the following: what function did this citizen-run hotline serve in 1970s Chicago? This study mobilizes archival research methods to analyze call records, meeting minutes, publicity materials, and internal memos from the Chicago Urban League and its Survival Line archives. This archival analysis found that the Survival Line served multiple functions; it was a non-state response to urban crises, a vehicle for Black solidarity, and a mechanism for gathering data on crime and police misconduct in the city. By functioning as an alternative to policing and state responses to crime, a vehicle for Black neighborhood solidarity, and a data collection mechanism, the Survival Line was at the core of an impactful micropolitical intervention upon urban crises in 1970s Chicago. As a historical example of community-driven violence and crisis response, this hotline has implications for contemporary social work—specifically for direct practice, community organizing, program design and evaluation, and community-based participatory research.
000014611 536__ $$oMansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, University of Chicago$$qhttps://ror.org/024mw5h28$$rROR$$aDoctoral Fellowship
000014611 536__ $$oRobert Wood Johnson Foundation$$aHealth Policy Research Scholars Fellowship
000014611 540__ $$a<p>© 2025 by the author</p> <p>This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" target="_blank">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</a>).</p>
000014611 542__ $$fCC BY
000014611 594__ $$aThe data presented and analyzed in this study are available at the University of Illinois-Chicago library and archives, within the Chicago Urban League collection.
000014611 6531_ $$aanti-carceral social work
000014611 6531_ $$amutual aid
000014611 6531_ $$acrisis response
000014611 6531_ $$aviolence response
000014611 6531_ $$apolicing
000014611 6531_ $$acommunity organizing
000014611 690__ $$aCrown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice
000014611 691__ $$aCrown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice Research Publications
000014611 7001_ $$1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1723-4586$$2ORCID$$aSuslovic, Brianna J.$$uUniversity of Chicago
000014611 773__ $$tSocial Sciences
000014611 8564_ $$uhttps://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/14611/files/Survival-Line.pdf$$97a0809d6-3061-4de9-91d2-cc3a01d3f8e4$$s253400$$ePublic
000014611 908__ $$aI agree
000014611 909CO $$ooai:uchicago.tind.io:14611$$pGLOBAL_SET
000014611 983__ $$aArticle