Mary Ellen Stitt

Stitt, together with Gabriela Kirk-Werner, will examine the operations and impacts of programs that promise alternatives to criminal prosecution and punishment, including court-mandated mental and behavioral health and drug treatment, community service hours, and electronic monitoring. Despite the popularity of such programs, little is known about how they shape criminal legal processes or the daily lives of the millions of people assigned to them every year. Drawing on a novel combination of interview, ethnographic, and administrative data, Stitt and Kirk-Werner seek to uncover the largely hidden uses and impacts of these programs and illuminate a contemporary court landscape that bears little resemblance to that depicted in most media and social scientific accounts.