FORGING A PUNISHING STATE: THE PUNITIVE TURN IN U.S. CRIMINAL AND SOCIAL POLICY, 1968-1980 BY JULILLY KOHLER-HAUSMANN DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee Associate Professor Mark Leff, Chair Professor Jim Barrett Associate Professor Clarence Lang Professor Elizabeth Pleck Professor David Roediger ABSTRACT This dissertation examines two intertwined recent phenomena: welfare state retrenchment and burgeoning carceral institutions. Through research on seminal struggles over welfare, drug, and criminal sentencing policy, it chronicles a profound shift during the 1970s where programs that championed punishment, expulsion, and retribution supplanted policies that stressed rehabilitation and social reintegration. Specifically, it examines New York’s adoption of the nation’s harshest drug penalties in the Rockefeller Drug Laws; campaigns in Illinois and California designed to control “welfare abuses” through criminalization and community surveillance; and California’s passage of the first major determinate sentencing law, which abandoned rehabilitation as an aim of incarceration. The project explores legislators’ motivations for these policies, their fervent public support, and the constrained agency of prisoners, welfare recipients, and drug offenders. These legislative battles served a productive cultural role in rationalizing new economic conditions, demarcating membership in the polity, and redefining state legitimacy and responsibility. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A web of family, friends, colleagues, institutions, and advisors supported and inspired me throughout the years I spent working on this project. On an average day, I am overwhelmed by my gratitude to them, but in moments of reflection the awareness of my incredible fortune is almost paralyzing. First, I must thank my advisor. My debt to Mark Leff can never be repaid. I can only hope to convey here the extent of my appreciation for his time, his patience, his encouragement, and his engagement with my ideas. His kindness, humor, and generosity are matched only by his wisdom and acuity. He has a rare and remarkable ability to evaluate the intellectual structures that other people build. He can easily discern the central pillars, the gratuitous clutter, the cracks, and the fundamentally unsound elements in any historical argument. Whenever Mark starts self- deprecatingly insisting he has no productive feedback, I brace myself. He usually proceeds to make a single comment or question that destabilizes the entire premise of the research. His mentorship has been critical in sharpening my thinking and my writing. I have been similarly blessed with dissertation committee members that have exerted a profound intellectual and personal influence. Jim Barrett’s willingness to adopt me as a provisional labor and working-class history student greatly enriched my years in Champaign. His counsel, company, and encouragement sustained me throughout the past seven years in ways he could not realize. Even though my research has far too many elites for his taste, his consistent engagement has left a distinct imprint on my thinking and work. Clarence Lang’s astute, critical readings and extensive comments went far beyond the call of duty. Our long meetings over coffee helped me navigate graduate school and the dissertation process. As a lecturer and iii seminar leader, Liz Pleck reshaped my understanding of American history, and inspired me to keep welfare and women at the center of my dissertation. Through in-depth conversations and various charts and diagrams, she helped me crystallize many of my foggy and half-formed ideas. I am also grateful for the mentorship of Dave Roediger. His courses were instrumental in structuring my approach to U.S. urban history and his thoughtful engagement with my work redirected and focused my thinking at many critical junctures. All five of my committee members were more generous with their time and support than should ever be expected. As I figure out what kind of academic I want to become, they all will continue to serve as important role models. In addition to my committee, I have benefited from the wider community of support at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The history department, the graduate college, and the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities all provided financial and academic assistance. Professors Dana Rabin, Leslie Reagan, and Stephen Hartnett offered kind and generous mentorship. The graduate students at the University of Illinois made my years in Champaign particularly enjoyable and I have missed the camaraderie since we moved away. I cherished the friendship and advice of the following students: Will Cooley, Amy Hasinoff, Erica Hill, Maurice Hobson, Abdulai Iddrisu, Jason Kozlowski, Anna Kurhajec, Marie Ledger, Shoshana Magnet, Sascha Mienrath, Ed Onaci, Craig Robinson, Melissa Rohde, Mike Rosenow, Martin Smith, and Roswell Quinn. In particular, I would like to thank the group of friends from my cohort that became my core conspirators and support during graduate school. Brandon Mills, Anthony Sigismondi, Kwame Holmes, and Brian Yates will be my allies and true friends for life. I was also lucky to have had the intellectual and social community provided through the Working Class History Reading Group. Not only did members offer incisive criticism of earlier iv versions of my dissertation research, but the group’s meetings provided a refuge when graduate school seemed overwhelming or disorienting. I have also received invaluable aid from institutions beyond the University of Illinois. I benefited from the assistance of archivists at the California State Archives, the Illinois State Archives, the New York City Municipal Archives, the New York State Archives, the Rockefeller Archive Center, and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Generous grants and fellowships from the following organizations make it possible to complete this research, especially after moving away from Champaign: American Association of University Women, American Council of Learned Societies, Illinois State Historical Society, and New York State Archives. The Journal of Social History gave my work a wider audience and its staff and reviewers offered valuable feedback. I am also grateful to an amazing network of friends and family outside the academy. This project was inspired by political indignation that has only grown more intense as my understanding deepened. Working with the community of anti-poverty, union, and welfare rights activists in Washington state profoundly shaped my thinking and perspective on these issues. Todd Crosby, Jean Coleman, Tony Lee, Aiko Schaefer, and Remy Trupin particularly influenced me. I hope this research can in some small way honor and buttress the work they and others like them do every day. My family has offered ceaseless support through the many stages of this research. My cousin Catherine Capellero’s editing saved me from numerous embarrassing mistakes. I am so grateful to have married a man whose family I adore, especially Kay Pickard, Lara Finley, and Willow Finley. My mother-in-law, Kay, has a seemingly endless reservoir of energy and creativity that she has generously used to assist us again and again in the past years. I am also v thankful for my hilarious, loving sisters: Kate Madigan, Kelly Reese, Bridget Madigan, and Issa Kohler-Hausmann. In particular, I need to recognize my little sister, Issa, who has done so much for me that I cannot even bear to elaborate. I could not survive without her friendship and loyalty. I am so proud of the person she has become and am excited to be there as she charts her exciting path forward. For someone who researches the tensions of managing the labor market and parenting, I was still unprepared for the difficulty of caring for a new baby while advancing my academic work. Thankfully, I was blessed to find lovely and trusted childcare that made it possible for me for me to complete this project. I will be forever grateful to Sompit Oerlemans and Kala Savage. Additionally, my parents and my mother-in-law rescued us over and over again by provided arduous and invaluable assistance with everything from childcare to moving. I did not think my appreciation for Julilly Kohler, Charles Hausmann, and Jean Hausmann could grow even stronger. However, having my own son has made me recognize the depths of my parents’ sacrifice. They are infinitely loving, and are my most trusted advisors and confidants. Perhaps most important, they are my examples of how to live with compassion, dignity, and integrity. I owe them everything. My husband Victor Pickard is the love of my life and my greatest inspiration. I could not have finished this dissertation without his ceaseless encouragement and assistance. Every facet of my life, from writing to exploring the world to parenting, is richer because I do it with him. Lastly, I want to thank my new son, Zaden, for making it so incredibly difficult to finish this project while simultaneously making me so much more determined to do work that will make him proud someday. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................1 STUDY ONE: “The Attila the Hun Law”: New York’s Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Making of Anti-Citizens ........................................................................................................................21