Prosecution for Services: How the Blending of Coercion and Care Shapes Prosecutors’ Decisions

Abstract

Scholarship at the intersection of punishment and welfare has revealed how the penal and welfare systems in the United States are increasingly intertwined. However, there has been little empirical investigation into how this entangling of coercion and support shapes the decisions of the people working within the criminal legal system. This article examines how prosecutors, actors with enormous discretion, consider the supportive services within the criminal legal system in their decision-making. Drawing on data from an ethnographic study of two midwestern District Attorney’s offices, I find that prosecutor decisions about whether to charge an individual with a crime or offer a probation recommendation are often based on the belief that the accused needs supportive services, a phenomenon I call prosecution for services. These prosecutors either think of the criminal legal system as one of the only avenues for people to receive these services or believe a defendant must be coerced into using them. This study reveals the on-the-ground consequences of a retrenchment of the welfare state and expansion of the penal state, where access to social support for the poor becomes contingent on criminal justice involvement.