Shattered Bonds by Roberts, Dorothy -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Page Title Page Copyright Page Introduction Facing the Racial Reality of Child Welfare Part One Destroying Black Families in the Name of Child Protection

1. The Color of America’s Child Welfare System 2. The System’s Inferior Treatment of Black Children

3. Tracing the Disparity to Black Child Poverty

Poverty and the Child Welfare System Poverty-Related Stress as a Cause of Child Maltreatment Detecting Child Abuse and Neglect Defining Child Abuse and Neglect Black Child Poverty

4. Is Racism the Cause?

Evidence of Racial Bias An Invitation to Racial Bias Cultural Prejudice Stereotypes of Black Maternal Unfitness Careless Black Mothers The Matriarch, Black Unwed Mothers, and Absent Black Fathers The Welfare Queen Fighting for Their Children

5. The System’s Fundamental Flaw

6. A Racist Institution?

Part Two The New Politics of Child Welfare

1. The Assault on Family Preservation

The New Federal Adoption Law Disparaging Biological Bonds Biased Against Whom?

2. Why Family Preservation Fails 3. Is Adoption The Answer?

Rushing to Terminate Parental Rights Losing Patience with Substance-Abusing Parents Creating More “Legal Orphans” The Costs of Adoption Misidentifying the Problem with Foster Care Tying Termination to Transracial Adoption

4. Welfare Reform: Ending Aid to Poor Children

The Connected Roots of Public Aid and Child Welfare From the Welfare Rolls to the Child Welfare Rolls? Losing Other Supports for Children Breaking Up Families When Two Systems Converge

5. Locking up Parents and Children

The Relationship Between the Criminal Justice and Child Welfare Systems Incarceration of Black Parents Detention of Juveniles

Part Three The System’s Racial Harm

1. Protection of Family Rights 2. A Theory of Group-based Harm

Connecting Black Individual and Group Interests The Political Impact of Family Disintegration The Child Welfare System’s Group-Based Harms What About Children’s Rights? Why Kinship Care Doesn’t Solve the Problem

Conclusion: Child Welfare and Social Justice

Social Support for Families Shifting Control to Black Communities Ending the System’s Punitive Function

Notes

Notes to Part One Notes to Part Two Notes to Part Three

Acknowledgments Index