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Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Familiesâand How Abolition Can Build a Safer World
Top of the pile
81
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
99/100Critics
44/100Scholars
100/100Author:
Dorothy Roberts
Publisher:
Basic Books
Date:
April 5, 2022
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.
What The Reviewers Say
This kind of rhetoric, on display throughout Torn Apart, makes it hard to take Ms. Roberts’s analysis seriously. And indeed, she says that, contrary to the idea that foster care rescues children from dangerous family members, children 'are much more likely to be maltreated in foster care than in their homes.' In fact, the median rate of reported maltreatment of children in foster care is well below the rate for the general population. The cherry-picked studies Ms. Roberts cites to support her case are often decades old, with tiny sample sizes. Her own research involves interviews with mothers who answer her flyers asking for their thoughts on child protective services.
Punctuated with poignant cases of systemic horrors, the compelling narrative delivers data-rich analysis that reflects decades of research, observation, and advocacy for Black children and mothers.
A searing look at racial injustice in the U.S. child welfare system.
Well-founded criticism.
