Torn Apart
How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World
Published on 3. October 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
384 pages
978-1-5416-7546-9 (ISBN)
Description
An award-winning scholar and author of Killing the Black Body exposes the foundational racism of the child welfare system
“A brilliant and impassioned call for abolition.” —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
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.
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest
“A brilliant and impassioned call for abolition.” —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
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.
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 225 mm
Width: 150 mm
Thickness: 5 mm
Weight
166 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5416-7546-9 (9781541675469)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Dorothy Roberts is the George A. Weiss University Professor of Africana Studies, Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania, where she directs the Penn Program on Race, Science, and Society. The author of five books, including Killing the Black Body, a MacArthur Fellow, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.