For a long time, I’ve been sending a weekly round-up of news
and commentary making the case for family preservation to advocates across the
country. Beginning this week, I’m
posting the round-up here for everyone to see.
● Dorothy Roberts, professor of law, sociology and civil
rights at the University of Pennsylvania (and a member of NCCPR’s Board of
Directors) has an article in Harvard Law
Review examining the dangers of predictive analytics in child welfare and
criminal justice. The article reviews
Prof. Virginia Eubanks’ book, Automating
Inequality. “In this Review,” Prof.
Roberts writes, “I expand Eubanks’s focus on state welfare programs to include
a broader range of systems, with particular attention to the criminal justice
system, and Eubanks’s focus on poverty management to include white supremacy.” Read
the article here.
● The Chronicle of
Social Change looks
at the work of Prof. Martin Guggenheim, co-director of the New York
University School of Law Family Defense Clinic, the father of the family
defense movement (and the President of NCCPR).
● Last week on this Blog I discussed an appalling
case in Arizona. A lot of the excellent reporting on the case was made
possible by the fact that the initial court hearing in the case was open to the
press and the public. Now, a different
judge has kicked the reporter out. Here’s
her follow-up story.
● Gothamist reports on a New York
City Council hearing at which the city’s Administration for Children’s
Services came under fire for harassing families when parents smoke marijuana. (Poor families, that is. Affluent parents can
even brag about smoking pot without fear of reprisal from child protective
services.)
● In the Chronicle of
Social Change Vivek Sankaran has a column called “While
We Celebrate [adoptions] Some Children Grieve.” He writes: “…[B]efore
courts take the dramatic step of permanently ending a child’s relationship with
their birth family, they should ensure that the decision makes sense for the
specific child before them. At a minimum, this must include hearing the child’s
voice, and considering other alternatives that might give the child a permanent
home while also preserving important relationships.”
● And finally, a rerun of sorts. The Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing was
awarded to Brent Staples of The New York
Times for a body of work that included this
editorial condemning what can best be called “crack baby” journalism. Unfortunately, at almost exactly the same
moment that brilliant editorial was published, the Orange County Register was reviving this discredited genre, something I discussed in WitnessLA Perhaps the
Pulitzer will help drive home the message to the Register and others.
