Litigation and its Discontents: An Interpretive Policy Analysis of a Lawsuit, Settlement, and Compliance Monitoring Process In and Around New York City Jails

In 1999, seven plaintiffs sued the City of New York and multiple municipal agencies. In this class action lawsuit, the plaintiffs accused the defendants of failing to provide adequate discharge planning services for individuals with mental illness leaving city jails, thereby violating components of the New York State Mental Hygiene Law and the Constitution of the State of New York. The civil lawsuit, commonly referred to as Brad H. versus the City of New York or simply Brad H., concluded with a settlement in 2003. The 2003 settlement stipulated that the city agencies named in the lawsuit were obligated to provide adequate discharge planning services for class members in the lawsuit. Originally, the Brad H. settlement specified a five-year compliance monitoring period, but this monitoring period has been extended repeatedly, raising doubts about the effectiveness of settlement mandates at spurring substantive institutional change within jails. As of this study’s conclusion, monitoring remains in effect over 20 years after the original settlement.  

This study asks questions about litigation and institutional change in carceral settings, mobilized via the following research questions: What kinds of subjects and obligations are constructed by the language found in Brad H. litigation? How do those tasked with implementing aspects of the Brad H. settlement understand its stipulations? How do professionals working in the systems impacted by Brad H. litigation assess the effectiveness of this settlement in terms of its ability to generate and sustain institutional change?  To answer these research questions, I take an interpretive policy analytic approach to understanding the implementation-related outcomes of the Brad H. settlement. Through Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis of compliance monitoring documents as well as grounded dimensional analysis of 28 semi-structured interviews with frontline workers and administrators in and around New York City jails, I develop new insights about the nature of litigation-based carceral policy implementation. 

Through discursive and grounded dimensional analyses of interview and document-based data, this study finds that: (1) the legal subjects and obligations constructed by Brad H. litigation are abstracted in a way that impedes changes in practices on-the-ground, (2) fragmented awareness and knowledge of litigation and settlement mandates contributes to incomplete and inconsistent  Brad H. policy implementation across the New York City jail system, and (3) an unresolvable competition between carceral versus caring institutional logics within the jail has reinforced the dominance of carceral logics, creating substantial limitations in implementing Brad H.,  a policy that aims to improve care and clinical outcomes for class members. This study contributes to the literature on social welfare policy by addressing—and critiquing—civil litigation in carceral settings as policymaking. Additionally, this study contributes to the literature on jail reentry for individuals with serious mental illness; the findings reflect system-level dysfunctions in mental healthcare provision and continuity, which challenges existing paradigms that position jail as a point of access to care. Instead of aligning with those paradigms, the conclusion of this study explicitly identifies jail incarceration as a disruption in care, rather than a point of access to care. By offering concrete insights and recommendations about the strengths and challenges associated with litigation as a strategy for (anti)carceral policymaking, this study aims to assist micro, mezzo, and macro social workers who are invested in advocacy and institutional change within the criminal-legal system.