Gatekeepers, Collaborators, and Policymakers: Crossing the Borders of the Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health Systems in the United States

Guest post by Jennie Simpson, a Public Health Analyst in the Office of Policy, Planning, and Innovation at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the US Department of Health and Human Services, where she supports the coordination of SAMHSA’s agency-wide criminal justice portfolio and provides subject matter expertise. This post is the third installment of Border Criminologies’ themed week on the Anthropology of Police organised by Paul Mutsaers.

There are two DCs: the gritty city―the side of DC that most people don’t know amidst the clamor and loudness of politics and posturing―and the city as capital of the United States. Stark inequality separates these two DCs: the Washington, DC of politics and deadlines and the city of Washington, DC, where I’ve spent near the last decade working between the borders of a fractured behavioral health system and an ever expanding criminal justice system.

In my liminal DC, which is both field and home, my work fits now in the realm of policy. As I’ve done over the last decade, I cross boundaries daily: now as an anthropologist and policy analyst as well as in my work that focuses on the macro-level intersections between behavioral health and criminal justice. Crossing these borders entails understanding how gatekeepers, collaborators, and policymakers drive decisions made at the federal, state, local, and individual levels.

In fieldwork conducted in Washington, DC from 2008 to 2010, I explored how homeless individuals with mental health and substance use disorders entered the criminal justice system via their interactions with police officers. These interactions were situated in the context of history, the political economy of Washington, DC, and the current wave of gentrification. What emerged was a complex architecture of gatekeepers who facilitated the entry of individuals into the behavioral health and/or the criminal justice systems; collaborators that mediated, supported, or contested the decisions of gatekeepers; and policymakers that smoothed the routes taken into either system. As I’ve moved professionally from researcher to expert technical assistance provider to policy analyst, these roles continue to be found in my work, in different forms, at different levels, but still infused with power, inequality, and social stratification. In this post, I explore how borders between research, policy, and practice are crossed, contested, and guarded.

Gatekeepers: Policing the New Downtown

One of the most painful recountings in my research came from a guest at the

From 2011 to 2013, I provided technical assistance to police agencies implementing a specialized model to respond to individuals with mental and substance use disorders in communities throughout the United States. In every town or city I visited, I sat with police and behavioral health treatment providers to explore the needs of their communities, problem solve, and create plans that would bring together two systems―with divergent policies, practices, and missions―in an effort to reduce the number of individuals crossing their borders. Community to court to jail or prison to community. With housing, without housing. With treatment resources, and without. The crossings are exacerbated by a lack of rights―to housing, to health care, to food. And always, the goals and outcomes of these systems will never be the same, although they serve the same individuals. Although individuals with mental health and substance use disorders have complex behavioral health needs that should be addressed by health care and supportive services, the criminal justice system shores up the lack of resources to address those needs. And so, people with mental and substance use disorders continue to cross back and forth, between systems, between communities and carceral institutions, across the chasms of needs and resources.

Policymakers: Crossing the Borders of Analysis

Knowing the gatekeepers and collaborators―and those crossing the borders―has led me to work in policy. At the macro-level, I see how movements in one system cause reverberations in the other. And each system is interconnected with many other systems. The web becomes complex. It challenges me to think concretely and yet expansively, because mental illness, substance use, homelessness, race and poverty cross so many borders: structurally, systemically, and socially. It is here that a public anthropology of policing informs my work in policy. Understanding the role of history, community relations, political economies of localities, the frontline practices of police officers and behavioral health providers, and the interconnectedness of these forces underlying the operations of systems are key analytical lenses that move forward policy activities on criminal justice, law enforcement, and behavioral health forward. Scaling up from the micro to macro level allows the intimacy of qualitative data from my fieldwork and the multi-site experiences of technical assistance to think holistically of the borders, boundaries, and crossings undertaken everyday by a multiplicity of actors working in the criminal justice and behavioral health systems.

Note: The opinions expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government.

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How to cite this blog post (Harvard style):

Simpson, J. (2016) Gatekeepers, Collaborators, and Policymakers: Crossing the Borders of the Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health Systems in the United States. Available at: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2016/03/gatekeepers (Accessed [date]).