David C. Turner III is an Assistant Professor of Black Life and Racial Justice in the Department of Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He is also a faculty affiliate with the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, and the faculty director of the Million Dollar Hoods Project on campus. Turner is this year’s winner of the Marie O. Weil Outstanding Scholarship Award, co-sponsored by the Association of Community Organizations and Social Administration (ACOSA) and Taylor & Francis Publishing.  

Turner’s article, “To Me, it Kind of Felt Normal”-Defining the Normalcy of Carcerality with Black Men, Boys, and Youth Workers,” draws on dozens of interviews with Black male youth activists and examines how Black boys and young men experience the normalcy of carcerality—the everyday presence of carceral power and control in their lives. 

“This award is an incredible honor and a testament to the value of community-driven research. I’d like to thank the selection committee, and I’d especially like to thank the young people and community partners who participated in this project. Oftentimes, the experiences of Black male youth are told through the lens of others, especially with a framing that positions them as just “receiving” the impact of social institutions. This article, and my work more broadly, speaks to how important agency is in transforming the punishment-driven conditions that Black boys and young men who work to change their communities have declared as normal. Those young people and their peers are unnormalizing carceral culture every day.” 

The Marie O. Weil Outstanding Scholarship Award recognizes outstanding scholarship published in the Journal of Community Practice and is based on contributions to the field, scholarly approach, and promotion of macro practice values.