Dr. Ben-Moshe will discuss the genealogy of deinstitutionalization by contesting the hegemonic narrative that prisons are the new asylums, and the social scientific expert knowledge that make it seem so commonsense. By so doing, she will paint a more complex picture of the relation between disability/madness and mass incarceration.

Throughout this talk Ben-Moshe will interrogate and destabilize the seemingly neat connections being drawn between deinstitutionalization, homelessness, and imprisonment by discussing the medicalization of housing insecurity and the new social science research trying to prove the connection between deinstitutionalization and housing insecurity by uncritically constructing and reifying the category of the “homeless mentally ill.” She will then discuss the criminalization of housing insecurity to provide a counter explanation to the nexus of homelessness and imprisonment. 

To answer the question of the prevalence of incarcerated people with mental health difference, she will also examine the disabling effects of imprisonment as well as the lack of mental health treatment while incarcerated.

This program is sponsored by Miami University's Miller Center for Student Disability Services, Disability Studies program, and the Humanities Center.

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