“That There Isn’t a System At All”... Dorothy Roberts on Abolition in Child Welfare

On this week’s podcast, we discuss Washington’s limitations on life without parole, “raising the floor” on juvenile arrests, rules of the road for foster youth COVID relief and prioritizing foster parents for vaccines.

Dorothy Roberts, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Program on Race, Science & Society, wrote Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare two decades ago. At the time, she proposed abolishing the field as we know it, to be replaced by an entirely new system. 

Today, she no longer believes that a system can work at all in a way that ensures justice for poor or Black families in America. She joins us to talk about the abolition movement in child welfare and the “non-reformist reforms” that she thinks can move the country in that direction. 

Reading Room

Washington Supreme Court Raises Age of Sentencing Limits for Teenagers

https://bit.ly/2NmSAJR

Boy Picks Tulip, Gets Arrested: A Tale As Old As Time

https://bit.ly/30XvYmr

Federal Guidance on Foster Youth Pandemic Relief: A Breakdown

https://bit.ly/3lj19lL

California Foster Parents Win Vaccine Eligibility, As Fight Continues in New York

https://bit.ly/3tsMiaV

Abolishing Policing Also Means Abolishing Family Regulation

http://bit.ly/37Y8aDQ

Rising Voices For ‘Family Power’ Seek to Abolish The Child Welfare System

http://bit.ly/3okyyNU

Strengthened Bonds: Abolishing the Child Welfare System and Re-Envisioning Child Well-Being
https://virtual.eventmanagement.columbia.edu/strengthened_bonds