Shattered Bonds: The Color Of Child Welfare
"It costs the federal government eleven times as much to provide  foster care as to provide public aid to families," writes  Northwestern law professor Roberts (Killing the Black Body:  Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty). Even worse, she  charges that child removal policies are biased, targeting blacks  over other racial groups. Roberts has reached these conclusions  through the careful research and scrutiny of court documents,  foster-care records, and police reports. She also looks at  social factors poverty, crime, and welfare provision among  them and determines that lack of income, rather than parental  inadequacy, is the major cause of child abuse and neglect.  Unfortunately, instead of alleviating problems associated with  substandard housing, poor nutrition, or lack of supervision,  child welfare agencies take children and plop them into  middle-class, but not necessarily stable, households. While  Roberts decries the destruction of low-income black families  that this represents, her arguments about systemic racism are  undermined by the fact that many foster care agencies are  staffed by African Americans. A deeper look at how "racial  profiling" is internalized by all sectors of society would make  this a more credible text. Still, this work is recommended for  all public and academic libraries as an enlightening study of a  major social issue. Eleanor J. Bader, Brooklyn, NYCopyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.