Doctoral Dissertation Research: Hospital Beds and Jail Beds: Los Angeles County and the Imagination of Poverty (1978-2010)

洛杉矶县政府每年都面临着在公立医院安全网和庞大的监狱系统之间分配资源的政治辩论。近三十年来，政策制定者一直在努力解决监狱和医院长期人满为患的问题。本项目是对1978年至2010年洛杉矶县监狱和公立医院过度拥挤问题决策的档案审查。它提出了以下研究问题：对贫困的意识形态理解的变化可能会影响当地决策，以扩大和缩小医院和监狱的床位，改变谁可以在这些床位上睡觉，以及他们可以在这些床位上睡多久？“对贫困的意识形态理解”一词指的是有关哪些类型的穷人是项目的目标，这些项目要纠正的是对他们行为的哪些假设，以及谁有资格、不有资格获得刑事司法和公立医院的参与。该项目利用了县行政人员与其咨询人员之间的备忘录、部门主管之间的沟通、用于通知政策的咨询报告和研究、会议纪要、相关剪报和宣传行动等形式的档案来源。这些资料记录了立法意图围绕县危机事件、试点项目和解决医院和监狱过度拥挤的社会问题的其他努力的实时演变。该项目旨在为政策制定者提供关于他们试图解决过度拥挤问题的信息，参与有关应得和不应得穷人的理论，并回应最近对考虑当代美国城市刑事司法与社会福利政策之间相互作用的奖学金的呼吁。

Los Angeles County government faces annual political debates over the distribution of resources between its public hospital safety net and its vast jail system. For almost three decades policy-makers have grappled with chronically overcrowded jails and hospitals. This project is an archival examination of policy-making concerning jail and public hospital overcrowding in Los Angeles County from 1978 to 2010. It asks the following research question: What changing ideological understandings of poverty might have informed local decision-making to expand and contract hospital and jail beds, shift who gets to sleep in them, and for how long they get to sleep in them? The term "ideological understandings of poverty" makes reference to conceptions about what types of poor people are programs meant to target, what assumptions about their behavior are they meant to correct, and who is and is not eligible for criminal justice and public hospital engagement. The project utilizes archival sources in the form of memos between county administrators and their advisory staff, communication between department heads, consulted reports and studies used to inform policy, meeting minutes, relevant newspaper clippings, and publicity actions. These sources document legislative intent as it evolved in real-time around county crisis events, pilot projects, and other efforts to solve the social problem of hospital and jail overcrowding. The project aims to inform policy-makers regarding their attempts to tackle overcrowding, to engage theory on the deserving and undeserving poor, and to answer recent calls for scholarship that considers the interaction between criminal justice and social welfare policy in contemporary urban America.