Healthcare Provision Pretrial: Public-Private Partnerships with Criminal Courts in the Provision of Healthcare to Defendants

• In Event: Lightning Talk: Courts and the Law: Research, Challenges, and Innovations

Abstract

Previous research has shown how carceral spaces are infused with healthcare provision, often serving as critical sources of care for marginalized individuals (Sufrin 2017; Comfort 2007). This work highlights the roles of traditional healthcare providers in prisons and has begun to recognize police as collaborators in mental health crises among criminalized and poor communities (Lara-Millan 2021; Seim 2020). However, the role of criminal court actors in health provision to justice-involved individuals awaiting adjudication is rarely acknowledged. Importantly, criminal courts often collaborate with public and private social service organizations to provide medical and mental health care for defendants alongside surveillance pretrial. This study asks: How do criminal courts partner with public and private service organizations to provide healthcare pretrial? What consequences do these partnerships have for defendants’ experiences? To answer these questions, this study will draw on data from three fieldsites: San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. The data will include interviews with key stakeholders (e.g., judges, and healthcare leaders), interviews with defendants enrolled in pretrial healthcare programs, observations, and organizational documents. By including courts in conversations of carceral healthcare, we can better understand how coercive health provisions become enacted in the courtroom and how criminality becomes medicalized.

Authors

• Faith Deckard, University of California, Los Angeles

• Erin Eife, George Mason University

• Chiara Clio Packard, University of Utah