Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Ethnographic Analysis of Care and Criminal Law in California's Mental Health Courts

有220万美国人在监狱和监狱中，美国是世界上监禁率最高的国家之一。鉴于公众对大规模监禁的成本、效率和尊严的日益关注，各县和各州制定了旨在减少监狱人数的创新政策。2011年，美国最高法院裁定（布朗诉普拉塔案），加州大规模监禁的做法违反宪法，受到加州过度拥挤的监狱的“残酷和不寻常”的惩罚对患有精神疾病的囚犯来说尤其困难。根据这一法院判决，加州在刑事司法基础设施方面尝试了替代方案。其中一个实验是精神健康法庭的发展，这是一个刑事法庭，旨在将被定罪的精神疾病患者从监狱中释放出来，并将他们置于社区精神病护理中。精神健康法庭在结构上不同于其他刑事法庭，因为控方和辩护律师与心理学家、精神病学家、社会工作者和法官合作，监测罪犯在精神健康方面的进展。在这种情况下，罪犯成为法庭的“委托人”。他们必须遵循法院制定的治疗计划，如果他们偏离该计划，法官可能会将他们送回监狱。该奖项所支持的研究问这些替代法律的计划可能会完成除了促进脱碳？ 是否有副作用或意外后果？更好地了解精神卫生法庭的做法和效果对于了解旨在纠正大规模监禁的项目的优势和劣势至关重要。普林斯顿大学博士候选人杰西卡·库珀将在伊丽莎白·戴维斯博士的监督下，在加州州圣克拉拉县和弗朗西斯科县的精神卫生法庭进行研究。她将在两个法庭和法庭赞助的诊所进行人种学观察，罪犯客户通过这些诊所接受护理。她将通过对法庭和临床专业人员以及客户的采访以及对法庭记录和成绩单的分析来补充这些观察数据。这些数据将使她能够识别和分析客户和国家代表之间发展的关系，以调查这些关系如何确切地发挥作用，将联合收割机护理和控制结合起来，以便通过为刑事司法设计的系统提供公共卫生服务。从库珀的研究结果也将阐明刑事司法系统在地方一级的结构性变化可能会影响更一般的地方外的关系，以及，如心理健康法院专业人员之间的关系，他们的客户，和多层次的政府。

With 2.2 million Americans in prisons and jails, the United States has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world. In light of emerging public concerns about the cost, efficacy, and dignity of mass incarceration, counties and states have developed innovative policies designed to reduce the number of individuals behind bars. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (Brown v. Plata) that California's practices of mass incarceration were unconstitutional, and that the "cruel and unusual" punishment of being subject to California's overcrowded prisons was particularly difficult for inmates with mental illnesses. Following this court decision, California has experimented with alternatives in criminal justice infrastructure. One such experiment has been the development of mental health courts, which are criminal courtrooms that aspire to take convicted individuals with mental illnesses out of jails and place them in community psychiatric care. Mental health courts structurally differ from other criminal courtrooms in that prosecution and defense attorneys collaborate with psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and the judges to monitor offender' progress towards mental health. In this context,offenders become "clients" of the courtroom. They are required to follow a court-developed treatment plan, and if they deviate from that plan, the judge may return them to jail. The research supported by this award asks what these alternative legal programs might be accomplishing in addition to the promotion of decarceration? Are there side effects or unintended consequences? Better understanding of the practices and effects of mental health courts is critical for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of programs designed to redress mass incarceration.Princeton University doctoral candidate Jessica Cooper, with the supervision of Dr. Elizabeth Davis, will conduct the research in the mental health courts of Santa Clara and San Francisco counties in California. She will carry out ethnographic observations in the two courtrooms and in the court-sponsored clinics through which offender-clients receive care. She will supplement these observational data with interviews of courtroom and clinical professionals, as well as clients, and with analyses of court records and transcripts. These data will allow her to identify and analyze the relationships that develop between clients and state representatives to investigate exactly how these relationships work to combine care and control in order to provide public health services through a system designed for criminal justice. Findings from Cooper's research also will illuminate the degree to which structural change in the criminal justice system at the local level may affect more general extra-local relationships, as well, such as the relationships between mental health court professionals, their clients, and multiple levels of government.