Torn apart : how the child welfare system destroys Black families--and how abolition can build a safer world / Dorothy Roberts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Roberts, Dorothy, 1956- author.

Contributor:

Rosengarten Family Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States.

Child welfare--Government policy--United States.

Child welfare.

African American families--Government policy.

African American families.

African American families--Social conditions.

Racism in social services--United States.

Racism in social services.

Social work with African American children.

Genre:

Informational works.

Physical Description:

375 pages ; 21 cm

Edition:

First trade paperback edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Basic Books, 2023.

Summary:

"An award-winning scholar exposes the foundational racism of the child welfare system and calls for radical change. Many believe the child welfare system protects children from abuse. But as Torn Apart uncovers, this system is designed to punish Black families. Drawing on decades of research, legal scholar and sociologist Dorothy Roberts reveals that the child welfare system is better understood as a 'family policing system' that collaborates with law enforcement and prisons to oppress Black communities. Child protection investigations ensnare a majority of Black children, putting their families under intense state surveillance and regulation. Black children are disproportionately likely to be torn from their families and placed in foster care, driving many to juvenile detention and imprisonment. The only way to stop the destruction caused by family policing, Torn Apart argues, is to abolish the child welfare system and liberate Black communities."

Contents:

Introduction : A benevolent terror

Destroying Black families

"They separate children at the Harlem border, too"

Professional kidnappers

Rotten at the root

Strong-armed

The foster-industrial complex

Family surveillance

Carceral entanglements

Structured to harm

Criminalizing Black children

Care in place of terror.

Introduction: A benevolent terror

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-360) and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Gift of Mary Hawkesworth.

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

ISBN:

9781541675469

1541675460

OCLC:

1401643340

Publisher Number:

99990617260

99994079524