Policing Not Protecting Families: The Child Welfare System as Poverty Governance (Critical Perspectives on Youth)

By: Jennifer Randles and Kerry Woodward

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Synopsis: Controlling, surveilling, and punishing poor families through the child welfare systemIn a typical year, one in five US children have some interaction with the child welfare system. Countless other families, particularly those who struggle to care for their children due to poverty or economic insecurity, fear child welfare system involvement. Though imagined as a system that protects children from caregivers’ maltreatment, contributors to Policing Not Protecting Families argue that the child welfare system polices and punishes poor parents who are unable to meet white, middle class parenting standards due to structural inequalities.Bringing together scholars from anthropology, sociology, law, and social work, this collection is the first to critically examine the child welfare system’s role in governing poor, disproportionately Black and Native families. It shows that the child welfare system is a key site of poverty governance, or state control and management of poor families. Chapters bring together empirical research from diverse settings across the US, highlighting the system’s interactions with other state systems and its wide impact on marginalized families. Together the chapters illustrate the failure of the child welfare system to protect children and families from the structural inequalities that shape the lives of poor and other marginalized families.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:: 9781479820627
Related ISBNs:: 9781479820610
Publisher:: NYU Press
Date of Addition:: 03/11/25
Copyrighted By:: New York University
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Nonfiction, Parenting and Family, Social Studies, Law, Legal Issues and Ethics, Politics and Government, Sociology
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.
Edited by:: null Jennifer Randles
Edited by:: null Kerry Woodward