Governing at the margins : how the state manages children at the junction of dependent and delinquent
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The state relies on bureaucratic institutions to govern marginalized groups, but the complexity of people's lives defies institutional boundaries. Given this inherent mismatch, how does the state govern marginalized groups, and what are the consequences of governance processes for group members? This dissertation expands our understanding of governance at the margins—meaning both groups pushed to the margins of mainstream society and those at the margins of state institutions—by studying the unique case of crossover youth, children at the junction of child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Because crossover youth, perceived as both dependent and delinquent, challenge the legal, administrative, and moral boundaries of these two institutions, they present an ideal case for illuminating interlocking processes of state governance. The dissertation makes three primary claims. First, I argue that bureaucratic governance is driven by the efforts of institutional actors—from frontline workers to administrators—to optimize resources and minimize blame. Second, I contend that when institutional actors perceive eligible tasks or clients to unduly strain the resources at their disposal and expose them to blame, they will seek to transfer or deflect responsibility across institutional lines, a process I term institutional offloading. Third, I argue that we can better understand the consequences of bureaucratic governance for marginalized groups by attending to the departures of bureaucratic actors from institutional rules and norms, which I refer to as institutional deviations. I offer empirical evidence for these claims through an analysis of ethnographic data from a California juvenile court and interviews with court actors. The findings contribute to existing research by advancing a more comprehensive framework for analyzing the interlocking processes of bureaucratic governance; showing how punishment—from macro-level decisions to micro-level interactions—is produced by bureaucratic processes; and illuminating mechanisms by which the pipeline to prison for marginalized groups may be perpetuated and potentially disrupted.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2023; ©2023 |
| Publication date | 2023; 2023 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Sirois, Catherine Martha |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Stuart, Forrest |
| Degree supervisor | Torche, Florencia |
| Thesis advisor | Stuart, Forrest |
| Thesis advisor | Torche, Florencia |
| Thesis advisor | Jiménez, Tomás R. (Tomás Roberto), 1975- |
| Thesis advisor | Rosenfeld, Michael J, 1966- |
| Degree committee member | Jiménez, Tomás R. (Tomás Roberto), 1975- |
| Degree committee member | Rosenfeld, Michael J, 1966- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, School of Humanities and Sciences |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Sociology |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Catherine Sirois. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Sociology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2023. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/dj961xc3320 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2023 by Catherine Martha Sirois
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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