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Project Title: How US state institutions seek to control socially marginalised women
Research Assistant: Sarah Ang, Department of Social Policy
Faculty: Dr Amanda Sheely, Department of Social Policy
Year: 2020-21
Description
This project examined the relationship between socially marginalised women and state institutions in the United States. There has been increasing recognition among scholars that governance in the US has shifted dramatically, with criminal justice and welfare systems increasingly working together to control the behavior of socially marginalized people through punishment and supervision. However, there is important variation among states in both the provision of welfare, as well as the reach of the criminal justice system. Research has found that states with Republican lawmakers, as well as with more African American residents have higher incarceration rates and more stringent welfare policies.
This project built on the existing literature in three important ways. First, rather than focusing on understanding state punitiveness, this project sought to understand how states are seeking to regulate and control behaviour instead. Second, it brought in an explicit focus on gender by examining state supervision of women under three systems: the criminal justice, welfare, and child welfare systems. Third, the research was designed to look for divergences, as well as coordination between these systems.
Read the report.
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Project Title: The acceleration of prison reform in the age of COVID-19
Research Assistant: Hawa Patel, Department of International History
Faculty: Dr Johann Koehler, Department of Social Policy
Year: 2020-21
Description
Prisons and jails rank among the world’s densest and most transmissive hotbeds of viral contagion. This insight worried the penal reformers of the 18th century who were concerned with typhus and ‘miasma’ just as acutely as it does the policymakers of the 21st century who worry about COVID-19’s spread. Yet while the suppression of disease spurred the prison’s invention and proliferation three centuries ago, today it prompts serious discussion about whether the institution has outlived its purpose. The management of COVID-19 has forced states across the US and beyond to consider the mass release of people held behind bars. Such measures are far more drastic than the preferred solutions of first resort in progressive criminal justice, which typically are modest, piecemeal, and incremental. This research project looked at how might we make sense of the spontaneous shift toward taking seriously penal reforms—such as the mass release of people from prisons—that were considered unthinkable shortly before.
Read the report.
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Project Title: Progressive Policing in the Gilded Age
Research Assistant: Johann Koehler, Department of Social Policy
Faculty: Dr Johann Koehler, Department of Social Policy
Year: 2021-22
Description
During the half-century that followed the Civil War until the Great Depression, America was in a state of abrupt flux. Rapid industrialisation, mass migration, spare regulation of business and development, and tightening strictures of Jim Crow coalesced in a new vision of “Progressive” America. Yet during the same period, criminal justice in many large American cities was also characterised by patterns of crime and its control that would surprise observers today — in particular, low homicide rates, permissive law enforcement, and spare punishment. To that end, police departments in Chicago and New York during the Progressive Era (1865-1920) serve as sites of a new — and deeply complicated — reinterpretation of the relationship between state and citizen. Through an analysis of archival texts produced during the early years as those departments modernised, this project opens a window into the Progressive Era contradictions of historical liberalism and progressive penality.
Read the report.
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Project Title: Effective policy approaches to support single-parent families
Research Assistant: Isolde Hegemann, Department of Social Policy
Faculty: Dr Amanda Sheely, Department of Social Policy
Year: 2021-22
Description
During the half-century that followed the Civil War until the Great Depression, America was in a state of abrupt flux. Rapid industrialisation, mass migration, spare regulation of business and development, and tightening strictures of Jim Crow coalesced in a new vision of “Progressive” America. Yet during the same period, criminal justice in many large American cities was also characterised by patterns of crime and its control that would surprise observers today — in particular, low homicide rates, permissive law enforcement, and spare punishment. To that end, police departments in Chicago and New York during the Progressive Era (1865-1920) serve as sites of a new — and deeply complicated — reinterpretation of the relationship between state and citizen. Through an analysis of archival texts produced during the early years as those departments modernised, this project opens a window into the Progressive Era contradictions of historical liberalism and progressive penality.
Read the report.
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Project Title: Occupational Paranoia: The Case of Chicago Policing, 1862-2022
Research Assistant: Vani Kant, Department of International Relations
Faculty: Dr Johann Koehler, Department of Social Policy
Year: 2022-23
Description
This study theorizes how an organization manages and responds to institutional anxieties that arise from perceived threat, disruption, or sabotage —a phenomenon we call “occupational paranoia.” It draws on over a century and a half of annual reports from the Chicago Police Department (1862-2022).This study equips sociologists with a framework to study how paranoia affects the organizing structure of policing and analogous professions that understand themselves as providing a beleaguered service.
The research assistantwill assist in the creation of a codebookand thecoding and analysis of annual reports produced by the CPD from 1862-2022, which will help inform the findings for a research article. They will also write bi-weekly descriptive memos analysing the codes based on the rich qualitative and quantitative data contained in the annual reports. These tasks will require initiative and creativity in handling archival materials (all of which have been digitised and prepared for the RA’s use), an interest in criminal justice policy, and an excitement about American history. The work can be completed remotely, though the RA will be invited to biweekly zoom meetings to monitor progress, ask questions, and provide mentorship and training.This project will provide valuable experience in the design, preparation, and execution of an original research project. In particular, the student will be trained in qualitative coding, which can be applied to content analysis projects they might undertake in the future.
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Project Title: State supervision of poor families in Los Angeles
Research Assistants: Bashirat Oladele, Department of Sociology, and Maria Constanza Novellino Ron, Department of Sociology
Faculty: Dr Amanda Sheely, Department of Social Policy
Year: 2022-23
Description
One of the primary goals of governance in the United States is the supervision and management of poor people. For poor mothers, this supervision is carried out by multiple systems, including the adult welfare, child welfare, and criminal justice systems. Research highlights that state supervisory systems are at the same time overlapping and contradictory.
This study will interrogate this contradiction by conducting a medium sized population study examining the historical development and current structure of state supervision of poor families in one local area – Los Angeles, California. It will seek articulation of the racialized and gendered dynamics of policies and practices with a view to highlighting where systemic harms can be mitigated or where care objectives can be realigned.
The student will create an annotated bibliography of historical research around state supervision by the criminal justice, welfare, and child welfare systems with an emphasis on poor mothers. To support them with this task, they will be provided with a training session with LSE library about how to find literature on a given topic, as well as using Zotero for reference management. The supervisor will also provide the student with detailed instructions on creating annotated bibliographies. The student will also organize and start the analysis of archival documents. This will include using Excel to create a master list of documents, creating a Zotero database for documents found, and preparing the documents for qualitative analysis. To support them, the supervisor will organise weekly project meetings with the student.