Dorothy Roberts: The Punitive History of Child Welfare Services

Legal sociologist Dorothy Roberts on how child welfare agencies do more to punish poverty and exacerbate racism than they do to protect children.

Roberts, sociologist, and law professor, has devoted her career to critiquing overly punitive approaches to child welfare and family law. In this wide-ranging conversation on the entwined history of racism, economic inequality, and coercive family management, Roberts outlines the thesis of her new book, Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World.

Dorothy Roberts is a specialist on the interplay of gender, race, and class in legal issues concerning reproduction, bioethics, and child welfare, she is the author of more than 100 articles and five books. She is joined by Robert Perkinson, American Studies professor at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and author of Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire.

Topics: Child Welfare, Foster Care, Juvenile Detention, Abolition, Racism, Poverty, Gender Discrimination, Parent Rights, Family Law

Event Sponsors: Hawaiʻi Friends of Restorative Justice, Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, Life Comes From It, International Institute for Restorative Practices, Justice Innovations Summit, Matsunaga Institute for Peace, Prison Engagement Initiative at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Scholars Strategy Network, UH Better Tomorrow Speaker Series, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria, William S. Richardson School of Law, Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice.

BTSS website: http://manoa.hawaii.edu/speakers/
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