Professor Robert M. Emerson

Winter 1999

Complex modern societies rely on bureaucratic institutions for both social control and service provision purposes. While many of these institutions are state created, others function independently but within the shadow of the state. All these institutions, however, show qualities of bureaucracy as identified by Weber, Foucault, and other classic sociological theorists. Indeed, some theorists have argued that what is distinctive of a number of such institutions is that they change the official status of some population or clientele who come within their jurisdiction. Thus, Hasenfeld (1972) has pointed to a number of common features of such "people-processing institutions" as criminal and juvenile courts which designate "criminals" and "delinquents", welfare agencies which decide on clients' eligibility for benefits, HMOs which determine the appropriateness of medical procedures, etc. These institutions, for example, carry out their fundamental work tasks by creating cases and moving these cases through to different institutional outcomes. In this sense people-processing institutions contrast with "people-changing institutions" which work to treat, reform or in some other way actually do something to those processed.

Objectives: This course will introduce students to the historical development, social significance and routine functioning of people processing institutions. Viewing these institutions as prototypical contemporary mechanisms of formal social control, the course will compare a range of such institutions, including those central to contemporary systems of criminal justice, medicine, psychiatry, human service and education, focusing on generic properties of the interactional and organizational functioning of these institutions. Substantively, the course will first consider a variety of theories of and approaches to people-processing institutions. It will then address the concerns and experiences of those served or processed, whether as clients, inmates, patients, etc. It will then take up the functioning of such institutions, beginning with intake and screening processes, then addressing the contexts and processes of institutional decision-making. Finally we will look at client/staff interactions and negotiations.

Organization: This course will include both undergraduate and graduate components. Undergraduates will attend two lectures and one discussion section to be conducted by a teaching assistant each week. Graduates will attend two lectures and a weekly section to be conducted by the instructor. Readings in the syllabus marked with a double asterik (**) are required for graduate students and recommended for undergraduates.

The course will involve a final exam, one paper, and either a second paper or a midterm exam. Undergraduates will read one, and graduate students two, of the Acase study@ monographs listed at the end of the syllabus; these case studies will be examined both in a paper and in the final exam.

Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage, 1980.

Howard S. Becker, Outsiders, chapters 1 and 2.

John I. Kitsuse, " Societal Reaction to Deviant Behavior." Social Problems 9:247-256 (1969).

**Kai T. Erikson, "Notes on the Sociology of Deviance." Social Problems 9:307-314 (1962).

Yeheskel Hasenfeld, "People Processing Organizations: An Exchange Approach." American Sociological Review 37:256-63 (1972).

Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, preface, chapters 1, 2

**Holstein and Miller, AIntroduction: Social Problems as Work.@ Pp. ix-xxi in Miller and Holstein, Social Problems in Everyday Life.

Feeley, AThe Lower Courts: Process and Punishment.@ Chapter 1 in The Process Is the Punishment. New York: Russell Sage; 1979.

Mishler, AThe Struggle between the Voice of Medicine and the Voice of the Lifeworld.@ Pp. 295-307 in Conrad and Kern (eds.),The Sociology of Health and Illness: Critical Perspectives. New York: St. Martin=s Press, 1990.

**Hasenfeld, AThe Nature of Human Service Organizations.@Chapter 1 in Yeheskel Hasenfeld, ed., Human Services as Complex Organizations. Newbury Park, CA; Sage, 1992.

**Cicourel and Kitsuse, AThe School as a Mechanism of Social Differentiation@. Chapter 1 in The Educational Decision-Makers.

Goffman, ATotal Institutions@, in Asylums.

Erving Goffman, AMoral Career of the Mental Patient,@ in Asylums.

Emerson, ARole Determinants in Juvenile Court@, pp. 631-38.

Lipsky, AThe Social Construction of a Client@, pp. 59-70 in SLB.

Robert A. Scott, AThe Socialization of the Blind in Blindness Agencies.@ Chapter 5 in Scott, The Making of Blind Men: A Study of Adult Socialization. New York: Russell Sage, 1969.

**Sally Engle Merry, AProblems and Cases.@ Chapter 5 in Getting Justice and Getting Even. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Lipsky, AQueuing,@ pp. 95-99 in SLB.

Barry Schwartz, AFormal and Informal Priorities in an Emergency Medical Treatment System.@ Chapter 5 in Queuing and Waiting. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.

James A. Holstein and Gale Miller, ARethinking Victimization.@ Pp. 25-48 in Miller and Holstein, eds., Social Problems in Everyday Life.

Robert M. Emerson, AConstructing Serious Violence and Its Victims.@ Pp. 191-215 in Miller and Holstein, Social Problems in Everyday Life.

Albert J. Meehan, "Assessing the 'Police-worthiness' of Citizen Complaints to the Police: Accountability and the Negotiation of 'Facts"." Pp. 116-140 in D. Helm et al (eds.), Interactional Order: New Directions in the Study of Social Order. (Irvington, 1987).

Whalen and Zimmerman

Elizabeth Stanko, AThe Impact of Victim Assessment on Prosecutor=s Screening Decisions: The Case of the New York District Attorney=s Office.@ Law & Society Review 16:225-239, 1981.

Robert M. Emerson and Blair Paley, "Organizational Horizons in Complaint-Filing." In Keith Hawkins (ed.), The Uses of Discretion. Oxford University Press, 1993.

Julius A. Roth, ASome Contingencies of the Moral Evaluation and Control of Clientele: The Case of the Hospital Emergency Service.@ AJS 77:839-56 (1972).

Donileen R. Loseke, AIdentifying the Battered Women.@ Chapter 4 in The Battered Woman and Shelters: The Social Construction of Wife Abuse. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992.

Lipsky, chapter 7 in SLB.

**David Hughes, AThe Ambulance Journey as an Information Generating Process.@ Sociology of Health and Illness 2:115-32 (1980).

** Emerson and Pollner, APolicies and Practices of Psychiatric Case Selection.@ Sociology of Work and Occupation 5:75-96 (1978).

Egon Bittner, "Police Discretion in Emergency Apprehension of Mentally Ill Persons." Social Problems 14:278-292 (1967).

John Heritage and Sue Sefi, ADilemmas of Advice: Aspects of the Delivery and Reception of Advice in Interactions between Health Visitors and First-Time Mothers.@ Chapter 12 in Paul Drew and John Heritage, eds., Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Douglas W. Maynard, ADefendant Attributes in Plea Bargaining.@ Social Problems 29:347-60 (1982).

Emerson, AThe Dynamics of Categorization: Establishing Moral Character.@ Chapter 5 in Judging Delinquents: Context and Process in Juvenile Court. Chicago: Aldine, 1969.

Thomas Scheff, "Typification in Diagnostic Practices of Rehabilitative Agencies." Chapter 8 in Marvin B. Sussman (ed.), Sociology and Rehabilitation (1965).

Robert M. Emerson, AThe Framework of Court Categorization: Trouble and Moral Character.@ Chapter 4 in Judging Delinquents: Context and Process in Juvenile Court. Chicago: Aldine, 1969.

**William B. Waegel, "Case Routinization in Investigative Police Work." Social Problems 28:263-275 (1981).

Dorothy Smith, AK is Mentally Ill.@

Renee R. Anspach, AThe Language of Case Presentation.@ Pp. 319-38 in Conrad and Kern (eds.),The Sociology of Health and Illness: Critical Perspectives. New York: St. Martin=s Press, 1990.

**Timothy Diamond, A@If It=s Not Charted, It Didn=t Happen.@A Chapter 5 in Making Gray Gold: Narratives of Nursing Home Care. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Egon Bittner, "The Police on Skid-Row: A Study of Peace-Keeping." ASR 32:699-715 (1967).

Robert M. Emerson, "On Last Resorts." AJS 87 (1981), pp. 1-20

Lipsky, chapter 6

Robert M. Emerson, "Holistic Effects in Social Control Decision-Making." Law and Society Review 17:425-455 (1983).

Marc Galanter, "Why the `Haves` Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change." Law and Society Review 9:95-160 (1974).

J. William Spencer, AHomeless in River City: Client Work in Human Service Encounters.@ Pp. 149-164 in Miller and Holstein, Social Problems in Everyday Life.

Lipsky, chapters 9 and 10

J. William Spencer and Jennifer L. McKinney, AWe Don=t Pay for the Bus Ticket, but We Can Help You Find Work: The Micropolitics of Trouble in Human Service Encounters.@ The Sociological Quarterly 38:185-203 (1997).

Holstein and Miller, WIN disputes

Jerome H. Skolnick and J. Richard Woodworth, ABureaucracy, Information, and Social Control: A Study of a Morals Detail.@ Pp. 99-136 in David J. Bordua (ed), The Police. New York: Wiley, 1967.

William D. Darrough, ANeutralizing Resistance: Probation Work as Rhetoric.@ Pp. 167-190 in

Miller and Holstein, Social Problems in Everyday Life.

Robert Dingwall, John Eekelaar and Topsy Murray, The Protection of Children: State Intervention and Family Life. Blackwell, 1983.

Aaron Cicourel, The Social Organization of Juvenile Justice. New York: John Wiley, 1967.

Aaron Cicourel and John Kitsuse, The Educational Decision-Makers. Indiannapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963.

Kathleen Daley, Gender, Crime and Punishment. New Haven, CT; Yale University Press, 1994.

Robert M. Emerson, Judging Delinquents: Context and Process in Juvenile Court. Aldine, 1969.

Keith Hawkins, Environment and Enforcement: Regulation and the Social Definition of Pollution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Paul C. Higgins, The Rehabilitation Detectives: Doing Human Service Work. Sage, 1985.

John Irwin, The Felon. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1970.

Mark D. Jacobs, Screwing the System and Making It Work: Juvenile Justice in the No-Fault Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Kenneth Mann, Defending White-Collar Crime: A Portrait of Attorneys at Work. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.

Douglas Maynard, Inside Plea Bargaining. New York: Plenum, 1984.

Richard McCleary, Dangerous Men: The Sociology of Parole. Beverly Hills, CA; Sage., 1978.

Hugh Mehan, Alma Hertweck and J. Lee Meihls, Handicapping the Handicapped: Decision Making in Students= Educational Careers. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986.

Lorna A. Rhodes, Emptying Beds: The Work of an Emergency Psychiatric Unit. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Harvey Sacks, "The Search for Help: 'No One to Turn to.'" Pp. 203-223 in Edwin Schneidman (ed.), Essays in Self-Destruction. Science House, 1967.

Austin Sarat and William L. F. Felstiner, Divorce Lawyers and their Clients: Power and Meaning in the Legal Process. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Robert A. Scott, The Making of Blind Men. New York: Russell Sage, 1969.

P. Strong, The Ceremonial Order of the Clinic. Routledge, 1979.

Jacqueline Wiseman, Stations of the Lost: The Treatment of Skid Row Alcoholics. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970.