ABSTRACT
This chapter critically examines the category of “in-state care” and its overlap with the ways that the juvenile justice system, foster care, and domestic adoption operate and are legally structured in the United States. This chapter traces the historical and contemporary overrepresentation of youth of color and Indigenous youth in U.S. foster care, group homes, mental hospitals, and under the supervision of the juvenile justice system. We examine the establishment of both juvenile courts and the foster care systems and the resulting connected systems during the Progressive Era and at the impetus of wealthy, white “childsavers” who were concerned about the status of poor youth, youth of color, and Indigenous youth who were at that point being sentenced through the adult criminal justice system (Bernard & Kurlychek, 1992, p. 48–94). Much like many other projects of the Progressive Era (e.g. the Orphan Train movement), this project was driven by the goal of assimilating and controlling poor white families, families of color, and Indigenous families with the veneer of saviorism. These projects can only be understood if we understand them as woven into the U.S. projects of imperialism through a transnational feminist and Reproductive Justice analysis.
