Doctoral Dissertation Research: Negotiating Institutional Complexity in Mental Health Courts

心理健康法院是一种专门法院，是法院系统内相对较新但迅速增长的干预措施，是旨在解除监禁的刑事司法干预措施的更大趋势的一部分。将这些干预措施联系起来的主要特点是体制逻辑的混合，因为刑事司法系统开始提供服务以减少重新犯罪。本项目从法院工作人员及其“客户”的角度调查了两个城市精神卫生法院的运作情况，问：a）工作人员和客户如何利用服务提供和刑事司法系统的竞争逻辑？B）是什么塑造了这些过程？c）法院干预和逻辑本身的后果是什么？ 通过对法院工作人员和客户进行深入访谈和人种学观察，本项目将全面Vantage在组织环境中处于不同地位的行为者谈判相互竞争的逻辑的过程。在这样做的过程中，它将扩展关于制度逻辑的文献，并将医学社会学家和社会法学学者带入对话，并通过在公共机构开展的一线工作，为关于国家在边缘群体生活中不断变化的作用的文献做出贡献。

Mental health courts are a type of specialty court, a relatively recent but quickly growing intervention within the court system that is part of a larger trend of criminal justice interventions aimed at decarceration. The key distinguishing feature linking these interventions is the hybridization of institutional logics, as the criminal justice system becomes engaged in service provision to reduce re-offending. This project investigates the operation of two urban mental health courts from the perspectives of both the court staff and its "clients," asking a) How do staff and clients draw on the competing logics of the service delivery and criminal justice systems? b) What shapes these processes? and c) What are the consequences for the court intervention and the logics themselves? Through a combination of in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation of court staff and clients, this project will gain a comprehensive vantage point on the processes by which competing logics are negotiated by actors differently positioned vis-a-vis the organizational setting. In so doing, it will extend the literature on institutional logics and bring medical sociologists and sociolegal scholars into conversation as well as contribute to literature on the changing role of the state in the lives of marginal groups through the frontline work carried out in public institutions.