Journal article
FAMILY COURT REFORM: Social Justice and Family Court Reform
Family Court Review, Vol.40, pp.453-518
01 Oct 2002
Abstract
SYSTEMIC FLAWS What aspect of family courts is in most dire need of reform? The fundamental problem with family courts is that they treat family problems according to a family's race and class status. White middle-class and affluent families almost always come to family court voluntarily to handle private matters, even though they may be seeking a coercive resolution to a dispute. 1 Poor and minority families, on the other hand, are disproportionately compelled to appear before family court judges against their will. 2 The state coercively intervenes in their lives and orders them to submit to the court's jurisdiction because parents are charged with child maltreatment or children are charged with delinquency. The child welfare system is marked by striking class and race disparities. 3 Children raised in poverty are many times more likely than other children to be reported to child protective services and to be placed in substitute care. 4 Poverty--not the type or severity of maltreatment--is the single most important predictor of placement in foster care and the amount of time spent there. 5 America's child welfare system is rooted in the philosophy of "child saving"--the idea that children should be rescued from the ills of poverty by taking them away from their parents. 6 Thus, the public child welfare system often equates poverty with neglect. 7 Most child maltreatment addressed by child protective services involves neglect related to poverty. Black children make up nearly half of the national foster care ...
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Details
- Title
- FAMILY COURT REFORM: Social Justice and Family Court Reform
- Creators
- Susan L. BrooksDorothy E. Roberts
- Publication Details
- Family Court Review, Vol.40, pp.453-518
- Publisher
- Sage Publications, Inc
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Thomas R. Kline School of Law
- Identifiers
- 991020547322804721