Yead afternoon. Welcome to our winter 2022 Master class and activism hosted by the Center for Racial Justice at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan in partnership with the School of Social Work and Poverty Solutions. I am Celeste Watkins Hayes, founding director of the Center for Racial Justice, associate dean for academic affairs here at the Ford School and a professor of public policy and sociology.
At the Ford School and at the Center for Racial Justice. We seek a world in which people are able to achieve their full human potential, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class and other categories that have been used to divide and systematically marginalized people. We train leaders here who recognized the critical role of public policy and improving our world. We recognize the power of public policy to bolster or undercut our life opportunities and experiences and we see policy analysis as a critically important tool for us to measure reflect historically examine and help us define the way forward. As we examine the front histories and consequences of some of our policies and the transformative power of others. We learned a valuable lesson. Affective and just public policy can only be achieved if we bring diverse perspectives to the table.
The master class and activism is a widely advertised by annual event series in which I have the pleasure to be in conversation with noted activists and thought leaders who have made significant marks on the policy landscape. For this semester's masterclass and activism. I am very delighted to introduce to you, my friend and former Northwestern colleague Dorothy Roberts. Dorothy Roberts is an acclaimed scholar of race , gender and the law who joined the University of Pennsylvania as its 14th pen integrates knowledge professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Sociology and the Law School, where she also holds the inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner.
Marcel Alexandre chair. Her path breaking work and law and public policy focuses on urgent contemporary issues and health, social justice and bioethics, especially as they impact the lives of women, Children and African Americans. Her major books include Fatal and Invention, How science, Politics and Big Business recreate Race in the 21st century shattered bonds, the color of child welfare and killing the black body. Race reproduction and the meaning of liberty. She is the author of more than 100, scholarly articles and book chapters as well as co editor of six books on such topics as constitutional Law and Women and the Law. Today Dorothy joins us as our esteemed winter 2022 master class and activism speaker to talk about her latest book, which is out today torn apart how the child welfare system destroys black families and how abolition can build a safer world and to reflect on the relationship of scholarship and activism that's so powerfully frames per work. Dorothy Roberts. It is an honor to be in conversation with you today. Thank you so much, Celeste. It's an honor to be here. And I'm so grateful for this invitation and just so happy to reconnect with you.
Absolutely. So, um. I really and moved by the title of the book, and I really want to start their , um, torn apart how the child welfare system destroys black families and how abolition can build a safer world. It's a powerful title Dorothy and what it shows. As one reads the book is your Evolution as a scholar and a thinker who really made a mark with the iconic book killing the black body. And who is now, decades later thinking about your impact as a thinker as an activist as a policy influencer, So I wonder if you can start there with just the trajectory, the genealogy of this book and how you came to write it in the first place. Well it does start with my research for killing the black body at which was at the very beginning of my entering academia.
I started as an associate professor at Rutgers Law School and Newark in 1988, leaving law practice and the main reason I left was that I wanted to write about. And advocate around the prosecutions of black women who are pregnant and using drugs. This was during the so called crack epidemic, and as you probably recall, there was the myth of the crack baby. Who was portrayed as a black baby affected by its mother's maternal drug use in utero and supposed to have all of these major medical conditions and predicted to become criminals and Welfare dependence and all of this horrific outcomes attributed to their mothers, and I realized that the prosecution's were being targeted at black women, and I thought it was a huge injustice, taking a public health crisis and turning it Into a crime.
And so that was my very first research project at Rutgers, and it turned into eventually killing the black body. As I realized that there were a whole slew of policies starting during the slavery era and all the way into the 19 nineties, when I was writing the book. That the valued black women's childbearing. So while I was doing that research, I came across the child welfare system because there were many more black women, thousands and thousands of black women whose newborn babies were being taken from them by child Protective services, and these babies were being called border babies at the time because so many were removed. There weren't even enough foster homes for them. They many of them were being left in the hospital, and then you know the very symptoms of being taken from their mothers and left and cribs on mass and hospitals were then the symptoms were being blamed again.
On the mother's for not taking good care of their Children are not having healthy pregnancies. And so I realized that I was looking at the prosecution's, which were a form of extreme penalty and harm to these black mothers, but an even greater punishment to them. Was the taking of their Children. And as I investigated that I found out that this was a system that disproportionately removes black Children from their homes and targets black communities for very intensive surveillance and family disruption. I was living in Chicago.
When I began to do this research. I've moved to Northwestern from Rutgers and in Chicago over 90% of the Children in foster care were black Children. And as I started to observe child welfare proceedings, it was very clear to me that virtually all the families I don't even know if I should say virtually all the families. I saw the dependency courts. With the judges determining whether to take Children away. Put Children back , uh were black Children and mostly black mothers? Mm hmm. So uh, that's what led to my book shattered bonds, the color of child welfare in 2000 and one Based on interviews with mothers. Just realizing the harm that the system was doing and how it was so concentrated in black neighborhoods like the name black neighborhoods in Chicago.
Mhm so Then I'll skip 20 years because I also in between, wrote a book called Fatal Invention. How This How Politics. Science policies and big business recreate race in the 21st century. That was on my really alarm at the resurgence of treating race as a biological category in genomic research. Despite the findings that we'd already known of the human genome project that there is only one human race biologically . I was very alarmed by that, and I spent Number of years working on that book and also being an advocate and an activist in the arena of medicine and.
Um genomic science, Other forms of science . I started teaching a course culprits, Science and justice and even lots and lots of talks at medical schools and in different scientific arenas. Um, but. At the 20th anniversary of shattered bonds, which is last year. I got some requests to write a preface for 1/20 Anniversary edition of the book. Hmm. I thought about doing that . I did that for killing the black body. But I spoke with my editor at basic books. You know, he asked me. What would you put in the preface and I went on for about an hour, telling him all the my new ways of thinking about the Intense. Supervision and disruption of black families by child protective services. Ah I could go into what happened to those 20 years if you'd like, Um principally. It was not so much what changed in the system because the system fundamentally Operates. With the same philosophy. It relies on the threat of taking Children away from their families as a way to address the needs. Of Children, mostly an impoverished families , and that has remained the same .
The statistics may have been flaw, but that basic underlying design remained the same. But what changed the most for me was that I had participated for 20 years. In lots of different kinds of reform efforts. I spoke to countless groups of social workers about what was then called racial disproportionality in the child system. I spoke to foundations, policymakers, child welfare agencies, even Purchase of Pated for nine years as an expert on a panel that was convened to address class action lawsuit. That uh, claimed and was found, uh, that the child welfare system in Washington state was violating Children's constitutional rights, the Children they had taken from their homes and placed in foster care. And that went on for nine years of trying to implement very complicated plan to get the state to protect the constitutional rights of Children.
In foster care. Uh and I realized that these reforms were not making a fundamental change to the design of the child welfare system. Uh, and then also, I Became much more knowledgeable and engaged with the movement to abolish the prison industrial complex. And so I began to learn the language , the thinking that philosophy the strategizing around abolition as a way of thinking about how to rapidly transform unjust Systems in the United States and globally and then the third thing that happened was that there was a lot more organizing by Parents who had been involved in the child welfare system have been drawn into it.
His Children in a way Really initiated by black mothers in particular, and also increasingly black Children who experienced foster care and that movement. Those small compared to other social movements, but it's been growing and it's been more focused on dismantling this system and replacing it. With better approach to protecting Children keep actually keeping Children safe and fighting for their needs and supporting families instead of destroying them. So All of this. These experiences over the 20 years since I wrote Shattered bonds led me to a place where I wanted to write a book that not only updated the statistics and the new studies that are showing even more widespread investigations of black families , For example, percentages of black Children who have been removed High percentages of black Children whose parents' rights have been terminated and the harms to Children.
You have more research is being done. Yeah, harms of the system. And then I said I wanted to include all of that, but also take more of a firm and documented Mhm abolitionist stab toward. The child welfare system, which I call and others called the family policing system I got from killing the black body at the beginning of my academic career heart Now what is that? Uh 30 years later, I think more than 30 years since I started the research Uh, for killing the black body, too, so I ultimately want to land on your move towards an abolitionist stance before we do that. I want to unpack a lot of what you said.
In terms of you seeing a system that was operating on many different levels. In detrimental ways at the policy level at the institutional level in terms of the network of Child Protective Services and the people who staff those institutions. Yeah sorry. No problem. God Now I can't get this good. I'm sorry about that. No problem. And then , um, the instant it's probably somebody saying right on. We're living what you're saying that my phone upstairs. I should have shut it off, but hopefully that won't happen again. True No problem level at the institutional level at the community level in terms of neighborhoods that find That that are composed of families that are disproportionately impacted and then the family level So you're doing an analysis on all four of those levels, which is so helpful for policy thinkers to think about when we set policies and then we asked institutions to implement them and they have impacts on communities and then they are are shaped shaping the lived experiences of families.
You're able to talk about each of those . So let's start with the policy level. Um and can you tell us what's that of public policies have basically morphed the system into a family policing system where families find high levels of surveillance? And what you point out is that poor families, particularly low income families find high levels of surveillance in their lives around And Child welfare. Can you talk about the policy set up that that made for that? Sure that's a great question. I love the way that you have distinguished these different levels of, uh, thinking and philosophy and intervention that create this apparatus of family policing. So even at the policy level, there's so many ways to address that. Um one way is to think about the history of how these policies came to be. And the design through policy. Of a system that from the very beginning targeted, disenfranchised and marginalized people and communities. So uh, whether we look at How the relationship of policy to black families, you know, we would have to start with the enslavement of black families and the policy written into law that black parents had no authority over their Children.
Their Children were considered chattel property just like they were, and so we have at the very foundations of this nation, a policy that says that black parents need to be supervised by white people and that black Children can be separated from black. Families from black parents at will of in that time, you know the white and slaver and then after emancipation, there was a policy of black apprenticeship that allowed for courts to send Now free black Children back to work for their enslaved vers on grounds that their parents were neglecting them.
Ah, there was the policy. Initially started by the US military to use child removal as a weapon of war against native tribes. You know that was a military defense or well really offensive policy against native tribes in during the so called Indian wars, And then after that, the policy of the US government It was. You know the adoption program to, uh decimate. Tribes or their cultures by taking native Children and putting them into white, Uh, institutions or adoptive homes. Uh and then the policy that was directed at impoverished white families to deal with their poverty through initially poor houses where the entire family was put into these institutions to work. Uh and then later on charitable organizations developing a policy of rescuing these Children. From impoverished they and eventually putting them into foster homes or on orphan trains . But overall this policy of dealing with the needs of impoverished families, especially black and did in his family's through child removal. Uh as opposed to through a generous welfare state that supports families and reduce poverty. Now that's the history that then becomes Federal policy . Uh and, uh it really gets instituted, Uh, in the new deal as well as then black families entering into the welfare systems developed during the new deal or as part of the new deal.
Where black people demanded it during the civil rights movement . Inclusion in these welfare policies, But what happens to black families is that the powers is developed to. To deter them or or throw them off of public assistance roles, and instead we see the beginning of this in the 19 sixties to have as the main service to black Children, re taking them away from their homes. Add We can see this in all the way into the 19 nineties with the then the restructuring of welfare to eliminate the federal entitlements and welfare. Benefits and the simultaneous mushrooming of the foster care population. Uh and that over the course of the seventies eighties nineties. Uh and it's really important to see that that policy of focusing so much on foster care was 10 times as much federal funding go into foster care is going to services. To effect families, Uh, the simultaneous increase in black families entering child welfare programs and the skyrocketing of the foster care population, So this is deliberate. Power see decision to address the needs of black Children in particular with child removal, Uh rather than with Generously providing the resources including income and housing and medical care, Uh and high quality education to black families in in, you know, as part of the U.
S. Welfare state. Then there are also policies on the state level, the local level that are heavily influenced, though by federal funding of child welfare services. Uh and the kinds of conditions that are put on that funding That has, uh Increasingly focused on Yeah, but Money going to removing Children and supporting them outside the home. So one telling , uh, coincidence of federal policy in the 19 nineties is the 1993 crime control law that intensified police surveillance in black communities. The 1996. Welfare restructuring law that ended the federal entitlement to public assistance and the 1997 adoption and Safe Families Act that sped up termination of parental rights and gave bonuses to states to get Children in foster care adopted.
Uh not Reunified with their families, and we're bonuses for that. There were bonuses for adoption , and all of those policies were fueled by stereotypes about black. A male criminality and black maternal recklessness and , um, hypersexuality and having too many Children. Uh what? I've talked about the crack baby myth that was going on at the same time. The myths of the black welfare queen. That was going on all of this at the same time, And so I think we can look at these. The confluence of these federal policies all as taking on it. Carcerano approach. Two black families and also And the liberal approach, um, with the needs of impoverished families, especially black families through private.
Means which is getting. Black mothers off of welfare, uh, emphasizing that they should get married, but at the same time Taking Children from removing Children from their homes and then emphasizing their adoption, which even though it's supported by adoption benefits, it's still is a private solution. To the needs of these families. Mm hmm. And the reason why that analysis one of the reasons is so helpful is it provides historical context for us to understand not only what's happening in the child welfare system, but latest versions of what you're describing.
So, for example, the family separation policy at the U. S border under the last administration under the Trump administration and what you talk about Out in the book is that that strategy is not new. That it's in fact part of a very, very long lineage of using child separation as a as a deliberate strategy that targets marginalized individuals. That's right. That's that's part of why the history is so important when we can see that child removal and placement of Children in foster care or adoptive homes has been a deliberate policy of racial subordination.
That was a policy that white supremacists Put into place after the civil war to Reince slave black Children, and it was a policy of war of the U. S Military to defeat native tribes during the so called Indian Wars. And so now, when we see Trump used those same policies and even executive powers that to removee Mexican border from their parents when they arrive at the border. It's not something aberrational.
It's not even something we could just attribute to a particular administration. It is a long standing way that child removal or the threat of child removal that just rupture in of families that surveillance of families has been used as a tool and instrument of subordination, a subjugation and also a way to divert attention from the true harms to Children and families. It's a blame the parents for it , and instead of truly dealing with what puts Children at risk in America. It's not their parents. It's the policies you know, to bring in policies again. We've talked about the policies of family separation. But those policies have to also be contrasted with the policy of not Dealing with the true needs of Children and families and instead of addressing them through support. Um for Children through policies that would reduce or end poverty, Uh, through policies that would and the systematic Government intervention into harmful intervention into black communities. Uh, parents get the blame their scapegoated and, uh, that. Diverts public attention away from what would be a better policy to truly keep Children safe and provide for their welfare.
Right So let's talk more about the institutional level because one of the things that I can imagine people thinking about and it was certainly something I was really thinking about is You know, having worked with families and study families. We obviously worry about abuse. We worry about physical abuse. We worry about sexual abuse. We worry about Children who are, um. In danger within their homes.
And I wonder if you can talk about that. Because you you have a really important analysis about what people assume is the number One reason why child welfare is called in, which is evidence of physical or sexual views, and what the reality is in terms of more often why CPS might be called into a home, So can you talk about that institutional practice of how people are more like Likely To come into contact with CPS. Yes the main reason why Children come into contact and their families into contact with CPS and also the main reason why Children are removed from their homes in place in foster care is neglect. Uh only 16% of Children and foster care were put there on allegations that their parents sexually or physically abused them. And the rest are their neglect, which by most state statutes is conflated with poverty. So many state statutes have neglect definitions that are so broad they could include almost anything that could possibly see be seen as a risk to a child.
But many specifically state not providing adequate food, clothing, shelter to Children. Well the main reason why parents don't provide those things for Children. It's because they can't afford them, and we live in a society that doesn't have adequate affordable housing. You know that doesn't have universal medical care that doesn't have universal paid guarantee childcare or a guaranteed income for parents. So uh, these are the main reasons why, and this is an institutional policy that's reinforced by state laws that define neglect as instances. Of poverty. Just the inability to provide these true needs of Children, But it's you know again. The parents are blamed for it. And the child welfare system doesn't provide for those needs. So for example , housing is a major reason why Children are removed from their homes. Their studies that show that 30% of Children in foster care could have stayed safely with their families.
If they're they had adequate housing and child protective services when they find a family that's not living, inadequate housing or that's living in a homeless shelter, for example, their responses to take the Children away and put them in foster care. And then tell the parents they better find adequate housing. If they want to get their Children back. They don't provide the housing for the family, which would obviously be the way to meet the Children's needs. And so this is the institutional level of how removal for basically for poverty. Is the main reason why Children removed Let me say one other thing, which I only discovered yesterday. I wish I had put in the book. I tell a story about a mother named Vanessa Peoples who was given a ticket by a police officer when her child straight away from a family picnic for about a minute and a stranger grabbed the child that wouldn't give him back to Vanessa. I all this time I assumed that the ticket was for neglect because that's neglect. All she did was allegedly not keep her eye on her son.
She thought the son who was with a cousin who left and then the sun , uh, traits behind the cousin, so she didn't keep her eye on her son for a minute. That that's not child abuse. That's the club, but the ticket was actually for child abuse. Misdemeanor child abuse, which in Colorado doesn't require that any harm happened to the child. So now I'm wondering if even those 16% of Children under federal statistics, who have been put in foster care for sexual or Physical abuse, if perhaps it doesn't include Children whose parents didn't abuse them at all but understates statutes. It's defined as child abuse, and, by the way, Miss People's now is having a hard time finding a job .
She's having a hard time finding housing because she's listed in a registry as a child abuser. That doesn't help her Children. Her Children were not at all helped whatsoever by the intervention of police because seven police officers arrived at her home and hog tighter and removed her from the home all stemming from a toddler traipsing away for a minute from his mother's care.
This is this . These institutional practices are harmful. Overall two families now. Yes it's true that there are then this smaller group of Children who are removed for physical and sexual abuse. But the child welfare system we have now isn't doing a good job of protecting them. The reason why we know about these Children so well is because there are national headlines brought two stories where Children known to the system are killed in the home. Now, this is relatively rare, but it gets a lot of attention and we should be concerned about this. But these are Children who are missed or not taken seriously by child protective services. They don't do a good job of keeping Children safe and after the fact removing Children from the home is not the best way to address the best IQ violence, we should be addressing it.
Through better ways of preventing violence, and that is not the focus of our child Protective services. They come in. After they find harm or risk of harm. Uh and they don't do a good job of preventing either neglect or physical and sexual harm to Children. Mm hmm . And then let's talk about the community level because in the book about basically what what for many is the hidden impact. But for people who are living it is the very real impact. Of a strong community presence of CPS , and you talk about it in similar ways to how people have talked about the overarching presidents of the criminal justice system in low income minority communities, and you really encourage us to think about the community impact of the child welfare system, can you Can you talk a little bit about that? In terms of the impact the use of CPS as a retaliation device within communities, the economic Impact of CPS. Um and the ways in which resources from CPS impact communities. Can you give us that community? Yes And thanks for bringing that up as well.
I think this is an aspect of child protective services or family policing that is ignored its ignored too much by sociologists and policy makers, policy scholars and students. Um when I was at Northwestern after I wrote shattered bonds, Uh, it occurred to me that there wasn't research being done on the community effect of intense. Child welfare agency involvement in black neighborhoods. You know, most research all the statistics I've talked about so far, for example, are statistics that look at individual instances of involvement. No either an investigation or placement of a child in foster care, and those statistics are accumulated, and we can see stark racial disparities in the statistics. But what? That Mrs is the fact that in large cities like New York Chicago, San Francisco is another one, but all over the nation of there Are where there are segregated black communities, which usually have high rates of poverty.
There is intense concentration of child welfare agency investigations and child removal, where there is no comparable amount of investigation like that in White neighborhoods in the cities. So I was doing the research and Chicago and Chicago there about five black neighborhoods that are, you know, predominantly white high rates of poverty and almost all the child welfare agency. Uh involvement is in those neighborhoods. So if you look at the rest of Chicago It pales in comparison to what's going on in those neighborhoods . And so for me, it's clear that the experience of people living in black neighborhoods Had Children and parents is radically different from the experience of Children and parents, white Children and parents in other parts of the city. Uh and so I decided to do a little study. Which was published in 2000 and six. This is also wallows at Northwestern and study of 25 Black women in wood long Hi. It's you know, a black neighborhood in Chicago, one of those neighborhoods where there's a lot of child welfare agency involvement just to find out from them.
What is the impact of everybody in the neighborhood being aware that there's this agency that comes in and investigates families takes large numbers of Children away from their families? And everyone knew that there was a lot. They also there's a lot of child welfare agency. They say things like 90% of the families and this neighborhood have been affected by child protective services. And they actually they called it the system. Everyone call it the system because it was so present in their lives. Even though the women I interviewed, none of them said their own Children have been taken from them. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but because many people don't want to admit that, but they were reflecting on their knowledge of other families that had been had Children taken away.
They all have friends and neighbors whose Children have been taken away. Many of them had were Kim Foster parents. Of Children who had been removed and they told me things like, uh, you have to look over your shoulder all the time, because you don't know who's going to report you to DCFs, the Department of Children and Family Services. They said they told me about instances of retaliation where people would call DCFs or the child abuse hotline to get back at someone.
They had an argument with or conflict with. Um they talked about the trauma that Children experience the interference in the parent child relationship either by the Children being taken away or by just Children knowing that it's easy for your parents to be put under the authority of the child Protective services. Ah and really my most surprising finding in the study was that after they told me about all this disruption and their neighborhood of the department I asked them at the end is D.
C F s two involved in your neighborhood? Not enough or involved just the right amount. And I anticipated that the vast majority would tell me it's too involved because they told me that its involvement was harmful , but most of them said it's not involved enough. And they said that because it was the only way they knew to get any kind of help for the family, Uh, they they knew that and some of them were receiving payments as Licensed foster parents, Kim in the Qin Foster care program.
Uh one told me about a friend who had gotten a crib for her baby. Uh but they all said, we don't want To have to rely on a disruptive system like this in order to get the material needs and income. We were required to take care of our Children, uh, which should be We should just be able to get it. You know the relatives who were taking care of Children. Couldn't understand why they had to be part of this disruptive system to get That income they needed to take care of. You know their grandchildren or their nephews and nieces. And so, yes, they wanted more involvement. Meaning they wanted more concrete support from the government, but they didn't want it to be hinged on giving up custody of Children and letting these investigators into their neighborhood to just wrapped it.
Mm hmm. Mm. Yeah right about it myself in, um, remaking a life. It's a perverse safety net. It's a perfect safety net. Yeah, absolutely. It's it really is it's you know, I often think they claim that these parents are pathological, and that's why they get neglect their Children . But to me, it's pathological to force people to give up their Children in order to get support for their Children. That excites you say so extremely perverse. Wish should not have a. Net. That on these punitive coercive tactics and iron mints in order to support families and Children . It backfires. It's part of the reason why it doesn't keep Children safe because If there are many families that are in true need, but they don't They don't want to tell government agents or even and by government agents. That could be a doctor. It could be a teacher. It could be a social service provider, but they don't want to fully let them know that extent of problems that they're facing for fear that these mandated reporters are going to turn them over to CPS and they'll have their Children taken from them.
And this is another example of how it's counterproductive is the case of mothers who are survivors of domestic violence who are afraid to call CPS because they Oh, At this is warranted believe that their Children might be taken from them. Even if their Children are safe at home with their Children have an experienced violence. Many mothers would rather and I quote, some of them and in the book would rather endure the violence themselves and know that their Children are safe at home.
Then call for help and have their Children taken and put in a dangerous foster care system. So you know, some people might think of a why wouldn't you call? You know, domestic violence hotline for help. Wouldn't that be better for your Children? But not necessarily if you are Honestly afraid and you have good reason to be that your Children may be taken and put in the custody of strangers or and institution. Where we know there's violence and sexual abuse as well as in homes and you know, and then it might be in individual cases more likely that the child is going to experience violence in foster care than at home.
And so, in fact, there are studies that show that at the margin Where Children their Children that could remain at home where we placed in foster care. Children are better off at home than being put into foster care. So as we unpacked that the central argument of the book and looked at the policies, the institutions the community impact, and you've talked about the individual impact on families throughout this, I wonder if you can pivot to talk to us about ultimately where you land. And you land at absolution , and I wonder if you can talk about that in the context of your biography as a scholar activists. And talking about right piece of your work that is intertwined with the prescription that you have around abolition.
Sure Well, I can say that all of my work from killing the black body to shattered bonds to torn apart has always relied on engagement with activist organizations with killing the black body. I was so blessed that I wrote that book was published in 1997, and it was right at the beginning of the reproductive Justice movement. And in doing my research for killing the black body. I was engaged with the emerging uh, you know, newly coined term, uh, actually was quite while I was working on killing the black body, reproductive justice and working primarily with black feminists who Uh, developed this idea this concept that we had to take into account the social structures that impede people's reproductive freedom, especially black women's reproductive freedom and not just base it on a framework of being able to choose how you want to live your reproductive life.
We have to take it to account the structural systemic. Uh inequities that make it impossible for many people to choose how to, uh, lead their reproductive lives and actually have actual control over their bodies and then similarly, with shattered bonds. I was greatly influenced by a group of mothers who were meeting in a church basement in, uh, in Englewood and Chicago. Who were trying to get their Children back from foster care, supporting each other and trying to launch a campaign highlighting the injustices of the family policing system there and similarly now with torn apart and engaged with much larger, now activist community that is working toward abolition.
Uh And as I mentioned before, I am only able to understand what abolition means understand the principles of it. The philosophy evidence strategies around it by engaging with prison abolitionist. So everything I have ever written. All my books have been influenced and benefited from and The sensual engagement with activists. Uh and so what I've learned about abolition is that it is a horizon of vision. Of a society that doesn't rely on Carcerano. Punitive disruptive, You know, terroristic forms of government intervention into families and communities in order to maintain some kind of order in our society, but instead Relies on truly caring, supportive, equitable, just ways of generously supporting people, including families, Uh, in, you know, largely community based That Ah Truly meets people's human needs and doesn't rely on punishing people has a way in order to provide stingy, inadequate resources for people and the belief which I think is well established that we can build a society like that, and that society would be healthier.
And more caring and safer for everybody. Hmm So that's the overall vision of abolition. It's both Dismantling piece by piece. The unjust punitive terroristic karsa rel systems we have now that do not keep people safe or meet their needs and at the same time simultaneously, and this is essential we have to be building. Different resources , different networks, different approaches different ways of thinking that are based on caring and support and human equality and dignity and not on these punitive approaches. And in that way we can move to Ward horizon of true abolition, which must include both of these components, both dismantling and building up. Mhm So I want to get through a lightning round. If you will, a, um, audience questions, Okay. I'm gonna read in our remaining time about can get through that.
Maybe ambitious to see how we do Okay . First question favorable foster care outcomes for natural family, adopted families and adopted individuals do exist. I am one such case. What would you say to those who are the exception? Who are highly likely saved by the system and whose family show favorable outcomes when abolishing the system removes any chance of favorable foster care outcomes. Okay Well , there's a so yes, there are exceptions on both sides. Of course, there are Children who were saved or rescued. I'm using the term of the question. The person who asked the question you know, taken from disastrous home situations where they were being harmed. And put into other adoptive foster homes where they fare better. Uh and, uh, yes, That's the case, but we also have to look at the overall harm that foster care does so for all that, the examples I can also give you examples of Children who were killed by staff in so called residential therapeutic centers.
You know of Children who are sexually abused and vile treated violently in group homes or who were killed by foster parents. Um I could cite Statistics of the high rates of suicide by Children and foster care. You know, I and we don't have time to do that. But believe me, there are lots of studies. Uh and anecdotes of Children in foster care who say it's worse than what was happening at home? And as I've mentioned in the vast majority of cases, uh, it's neglect that's related to poverty. So my so I'm not denying that in the system we have now we can find those cases. You know, I both sides But the question is, Is this the best way to deal with either family violence or the needs of Children that stem just from inadequate income in the home or can we have a better way where there would be the outcomes that this person is asking about for all Children? You know, it shouldn't be that in order.
We should keep a system that has some good outcomes, but lots of terrible outcomes for Children of the overall statistics of outcomes for Children in foster care are Bismol. They have higher rates of incarceration, higher rates of poverty, higher rates of mental illness. I mean, so Hit the We should be asking what is the best system or the best approach? I'm not necessarily saying it should be a new revised system, but the best approach.
For dealing with the needs of Children and families and keeping Children safe and I think we have to stop relying on the fact that there are some good outcomes as an excuse, and I'm not trying to diminish this question. I really take it seriously, but it shouldn't be a reason to keep US system that is also harming when we could Imagine and build something that's better for all Children. Hmm So what do you think? A good first step is for organizers who want to begin thinking about this question. And you know, one of the critiques of abolitionist frameworks are it's not practical. Where do you start? It's too overwhelming. And I think a lot of people watching, particularly students are grappling with this question of do I try to work from within an institution, right? Do I become part of the institution and we're going to try to change it or do I adopt an abolitionist framework that sees the system is fundamentally broken and then putting my energy towards that.
Right under if you can, If you can close us out by helping us think through that dilemma. Sure So first of all, it's important to remember that abolition is horizon. Nope Abolitionist. I know thinks that we're going to tear down prisons, police and foster care, You know, even in 10 years Uh, but well, maybe some have a slightly shorter horizon. But any what time soon , Let's put it that way, and we see it as an incremental process of both dismantling piece by piece, but also building up a replacement for what we have now that takes time, So it's not as if Anyone thinks it's going to happen quickly.
Uh And so the question is, How do we incrementally moved toward that ? And uh, so a couple of things I want to say is number one There are abolitionist organizations now that we can turn to who are already doing this work Movement for family power in New York City, J. Mac for families led by Joyce McMillan. In New York City, also the upend movement that is come , uh, a collaboration of the center for the study of Social Policy and the University of Houston School of Social Work.
It's dean of social work. Alan Deadlock is an abolitionist, Uh and so there are organizations. And websites that students can look to now for more information and to get involved now, I think of really useful abolitionist principle is that of non reformist reforms. That is recognizing. We need reforms We need, for example, to advocate for high quality legal assistance. Uh that's multidisciplinary that includes social workers. Uh and parent, uh, peer advocates as well as attorneys to represent family caregivers and child welfare proceedings at that is something we could pass legislation to provide now, and it would help to keep Children safely out of foster care. So that's just one example of a concrete step we could take now. That would help to dismantle the system. And also would help to begin to build a more caring approach for families.
Uh and so, uh, non abolition. Non reformist reforms are reforms. That aren't reformist in the sense that our goal isn't just a fix flaws in the system. It is to dismantle the system and replace it, But we recognize that we have to engage in some reforms, but they shouldn't be reforms that Continue this philosophy of destroying families. They should be reforms that support Children and families and prevent violence, not just react to it after the fact by taking Children away from their families, and so that's how I think we should approach it, and I think it's a tough Question.
I know that some of my colleagues and comrades would probably say I don't have anything to do with this system at all. But I just made a recommendation for family defenders who are engaging in some way with the system and opposition to it, but they're part of the legal proceedings. Trying to keep families out of those proceedings but engaging with those proceedings. Uh social workers can work in, uh, those offices or other kinds of programs. We need social workers to help build the programs and resources and networks that are outside of the child welfare system. So Ah, you know, rather than say, approve going into the system. I will just say there's lots to do outside of it as well. And if that's what you're interested in, help us to dismantle what we have now that's so destructive and build more caring. Resource rich and equitable, non car Seroquel networks that can truly be a current replacement. This is not just 10 years or not, but right now we can be building them two of eventually completely replace The destructive system we have now with this more caring and humane approach.
The book is called, Torn apart how the child Welfare system destroys black families and how abolition can build a safer world. Dorothy Roberts, you have given us a policy and legal analysis that is grounded in history and sociological and political and economic analysis. You have helped us understand how the system operates on many levels in terms of federal state, local policy, Institutional Dynamics, community dynamics, family and individual dynamics. And you have shown us how activism and scholarship can work together through the rigor of scholarship. And the passion and organizing and activism to make the world a better place. And you have done that so beautifully and given us some very clear direction, in terms of how we think about child welfare, but also so many other systems.
Criminal justice Tan. If so many Systems that have a lot of similarities to what you're describing today. And for all of these reasons, I think this book is a must read and really want to thank you for joining us today in our 2022 winter masterclass and activism and I'm gonna thank the audience for joining us. Thank you so much, Dorothy. Oh thank you, Celeste. I could not thank you enough. Those are brilliant questions, and I truly enjoyed and appreciate this conversation. Wonderful You are welcome. Thank you, everyone for joining us, And with that we really appreciate your participation.