ABSTRACT
As with the other social systems discussed in this book, child welfare both currently and historically continues to reflect society’s existing social inequalities, most particularly as it pertains to the treatment of marginalized families. Under the guise of protecting children from maltreatment, abuse, and neglect, marginalized families, whether the poor immigrant families of the 1800s or the poor Native American, Black, and Hispanic families in the 2000s, have been blamed and punished for their marginality by the removal of their children. Although there have been occasional attempts at family preservation and helping to strengthen rather than sanction poor families, the default position of child welfare has more typically been one of punishment for lack of adherence to middle- and upper-class norms with little consideration of the structural impediments imposed by poverty. Thus, rather than address existing societal inequalities, the status quo is maintained by way of punitive child welfare policies and actions that under the guise of the best interest of the child promote parental culpability, social regulation, and sanction. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, whose incentives and rigid timelines are heavily weighted against family preservation in favor of family dissolution and adoption.
