December 11, 2020
In her new book, Abusive Policies: How the American Child Welfare System Lost Its Way, University of Rochester professor Mical Raz argues that Biased viewpoints regarding race, class, and gender played a powerful role shaping perceptions of child abuse. (Getty Images)
A shift starting in the late 1960s has targeted poor families with unnecessary investigations and child removals at the expense of services, argues Mical Raz.
Black children are removed from their families at much greater rates than any other race or ethnicity in this country. At the same time the sheer number of all child abuse investigations in the US is staggering: experts estimate that by age 18 one out of three children has been the subject of a child protective services investigation. Yet, many of these investigations and removals are unjustified and stem from a misguided policy shift that began in the late 1960s, says