Excerpted from Confronting the Racist Legacy of the American Child Welfare System, by Alan J. Dettlaff, with co-authors Reiko Boyd, Victoria Copeland, Jesse Hartley, Maya Pendleton, and Kristen Weber.

The vision for the future of the child welfare system must be a vision of abolition. The racist origins of family separation and the racist intents upon which the child welfare system is built are so deeply rooted in its policies and structures they cannot simply be revised or reformed. Rather, they must be eliminated as a means of confronting the racist history of the system and the harms it has produced. Thus, abolition of the child welfare system involves the complete elimination of the existing system, which is built on a model of surveillance and separation, as well as a fundamental reimagining of the ways in which society cares for and supports children, families, and communities. 

Abolition involves simultaneously dismantling the racist policies and structures that produce harm and building resources and supports designed by families and communities that promote the safety and well-being of children in their homes. Importantly, this does not mean the creation of a new government system or a stronger welfare state; this means the creation of a new society where the concept of welfare does not exist because all families have what they need to thrive. In this way, abolition is not about simply ending the child welfare system; it is about creating a new society where the need for a child welfare system is obsolete.

This may appear radical to some, and it is intended to be. Abolition of harmful systems that perpetuate racial oppression is our only path forward if we are to truly achieve a just and healthy society. As a system and as a society, we have accepted forcible separation and the destruction of families as the only solution for children in need of “protection,” while turning a blind eye to the oppression and racial terror that result….

In calling for abolition, it is important to acknowledge that there are extreme cases of harm to children that occur in society. It is also important to acknowledge that child welfare agencies are often unable to prevent harm to children – even with their coercive power of family separation – and often this harm occurs to children under their supervision. Recognizing this, abolition seeks to understand why we live in a society where such harm occurs and how we can support the creation of a society where such harm does not occur. Abolition does not mean abandoning the need to protect children. It means building new ways of protecting and supporting families that eliminate coercive systems of surveillance and punishment. This is the work of abolition. And this is the work I hope this book leads you to join.

Confronting the Racist Legacy of the American Child Welfare System is designed to provide an understanding of the harm and oppression that result from the modern child welfare system…[which] throughout the balance of this book I will refer to as the family policing system….

The issue of intent is an important premise of this book. [It] is designed to demonstrate that the harm and oppression that result from the family policing system is not the result of “unintended consequences” or of factors outside the system itself. Rather, the harm to and oppression of Black children and families is the clear intent of this system and the clearly foreseeable result of the policies that have been put in place over decades. 

Finally, [it] is designed to demonstrate that the intended outcomes of family separations during the time of human chattel slavery – the subjugation of Black Americans and the maintenance of White supremacy – are the same intended outcomes of the family separations done today through the family policing system. 

What distinguishes contemporary family separations from those that occurred during slavery is that today’s separations occur under a façade of benevolence, a myth that has been perpetuated over decades by those in power that family separations are necessary to “save” the most vulnerable children. As a result, the public ignores or simply fails to recognize the harm that results from this practice. 

Although abolition is about both dismantling and creating, the lack of movement toward building a new society where the family policing system is obsolete is often what prevents those who are skeptical of abolition from moving forward with dismantling. This work can begin through a process of divesting and investing – divesting from the family policing system and the foster care industrial complex built around it, and investing in families and communities, beginning with those most impacted by family policing intervention.

As of 2018, $33 billion are spent annually to maintain the family policing system; nearly half of these funds are spent solely to maintain out-of-home placements resulting from family separations…. Nearly 70 percent of these separations are due largely to issues resulting from poverty. What if, instead of forcibly separating children from their parents and then paying “foster parents” to care for others’ children, we simply used those funds to ensure parents have everything they need for their children to grow and thrive safely in their homes? 

This is not a radical idea, and it does not even involve identifying new funding streams. Decades of research demonstrate that providing direct material assistance to families significantly reduces both involvement with the family policing system and incidents of child maltreatment. Thus, this is not only a strategy we can begin today, but also a strategy we know will be effective….

In addition to direct material supports, we can create broader structural changes needed to end poverty and advance the safety and well-being of children. These include a housing guarantee; free public transportation; and free, accessible, and meaningful child care, health care, and mental health care. Each of these will require robust policy changes, but these are policy changes that are needed and that are possible in the near-term.

In addition to divesting and investing financial resources, we can build on the strengths of families by shifting power away from harmful, oppressive state institutions and toward families and communities…. [That] also includes ensuring they have the resources to prevent harm from occurring, to address harm when harm occurs, and to promote healing. 

When harm does occur, communities should have responsibility for rendering healing and accountability while strengthening relationships among community members. Rather than relying on state-sanctioned interventions that cause further harm by separating families and fragmenting communities, divesting from the family policing system and investing in families and communities also includes building mechanisms that support families in autonomously identifying non-carceral solutions that support healing, safety, and the prevention of future harm.

From Confronting the Racist Legacy of the American Child Welfare System , by Alan J. Dettlaff. Copyright © 2023 by Oxford University Press and published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. This excerpt published with the permission of the author and publisher. 

Alan J. Dettlaff is a professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work.  In 2020, he helped to create the upEND movement, dedicated to abolishing the family policing system and building alternatives that focus on healing and liberation.

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