Abolition is, as we have been well taught, at a minimum, a vision, a process, and a “theory of change.” (P. 867.) It is also crucially about power and resource allocation. Specifically, the transfer of power and resources away from those who have built institutions that reify white supremacy and to Black (and often intersectionally Brown, disabled, poor, Indigenous, Queer) communities subject to that institution’s violence. For academics and policymakers seeking to participate, one among many essential tasks is to attempt to step back and begin to understand how abolitionist praxis envisions change. This question is, at the very least, about who is in charge of change and how change happens. The who is clear. Change is led primarily by those most acutely subject to white supremacy’s violence. As to the how, abolitionists “recognize that the world may not change tomorrow; however, [they] also reject incrementalism that reinforces the status quo and entrenches oppressive cultures.” (P. 890.)
Visioning abolition and understanding the difference between reform proposals that would “reinforce the status quo and entrench oppressive cultures” and those that would be a step toward the vision were at the heart of a recent, groundbreaking symposium. Sponsored by the Columbia Journal of Race and the Law, Strengthened Bonds: Abolishing the Child Welfare System and Reenvisioning Child Well Being, marked the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Dorothy Roberts’s Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare, by renaming the child welfare system as the family regulation,1 family policing2 or family destruction system (P. 883) and by calling for its abolition. The proceedings and papers are quite astounding and easily the subject of several entries in this particular, celebratory forum. But because I had to choose and because of the importance of understanding the vision, the specifics of abolitionist theories of change, and ways in which well-meaning professionals can get in the way of these goals, I feature a symposium piece that is beautiful, inspiring, and profoundly challenging: Ending the Family Death Penalty and Building a World We Deserve, co-authored by Ashley Albert, Tiheba Bain, Elizabeth Brico, Bishop Maria Dinkins, and Kelis Houston. My purpose here is simply to highlight some of what they share and to strongly encourage you to spend some time reading and reflecting on the article in full.
The authors describe themselves as “directly impacted mothers, community organizations, and allied advocates across the country” who have been working closely together since at least since 2019. They describe their collective process, share their vision, reveal how the family regulation system as a whole, and the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in particular, is grounded in and reinforces white supremacy. They call for the abolition of the family regulation system and, crucially, lay down a specific metric by which to evaluate potential steps on the road to abolition.
Before turning to the test for proposed reform, I want to start, as the authors do, not with the problem but with their vision:
We demand a world where the integrity of all families is valued and family ancestry is held sacred. In this world, families are supported and given the resources they need to thrive, and the family death penalty, or termination of parental rights, no longer exists. (P. 869.)
Starting with the vision is important, because visioning challenges us all to “stretch, twist, and wring out all the permutations of possibility and fully embrace the capacity of potential.” (P. 867.) Recognizing that the world may not change tomorrow, though, the authors make clear that, as is the case when talking about abolition and the criminal legal system,3 particular changes can be either a step toward the goal (a non-reformist or abolitionist reform) or it can be a reformist reform, one that strengthens the very institutional forms that abolition seeks to unroot. To tell the difference in the context of family policing, they offer a four-part test:
- Are the changes that are being proposed reducing funding to the child welfare industrial complex and increasing funds to communities?
- Is the narrative around the policy shift pushing the dominance narrative that the family regulation system is an arbiter of safety?
- Are we supporting changes that decrease the size, power, and scale of the family destruction system?
- Are we supporting a shift in material conditions and the politicization for our people?
(Pp. 891-92.) To see how this might play out in the context of family regulation, the authors focus on ASFA and the destruction of families wrought by that act. Assuming there may be steps towards abolition short of the ultimate goal, they provide examples of what would be an abolitionist v. a reformist reform in this context. On the abolitionist side, they suggest that ending terminations of parental rights (TPR) would be a step toward abolition presumably because it would “decrease the size, power and scale of the family destruction system” and “shift material conditions…for our people.” (P. 892.) In contrast, internal agency reviews of TPR policy fails because it does not reduce funding to the system. (Id.) Instead, it increases it. Moreover, giving the power to conduct reviews to the child welfare agency supports the narrative that the family regulation system is an arbiter of safety and fails to make progress on the goals listed in the last two parts of the test. This all seems straightforward.
Another example though, squarely raises a crucial issue–the ways in which professional interventions that seek to understand a particular person or family’s “problem” and then create a “program” to address that “problem” can be particularly counterproductive. To make this point, the authors highlight the concept of adverse childhood experiences (ACES) and the relationship between ACES and foster care prevention services. There’s no question that putting resources into the hands of agencies associated with the family regulation system to provide prevention services fails the abolitionist reform test. It builds, rather than shrinks, the system and reinforces the narrative that that agency is the arbiter of safety. It also does nothing to directly advance the material or political power of communities most deeply harmed by white supremacy. An advocate for such policy might respond that the concept of ACES and programs genuinely informed by an understanding of ACES have been shown to help particular families. How could this be a problem? To that, the authors have a clear response:
These industries are so faithful to technical surveys like “ACES” that are supposed to address adverse childhood experiences, rather than actually building up Black women and children.They spend more time building out family regulation apparatuses like “prevention models” than advocating for housing, baby bonds, and universal basic incomes for our communities. (P. 894.)
The message to those who would support such an intervention here is clear. If you agree we should move toward their vision, stop diagnosing “problems” and stop “helping” by expanding institutions. Instead, use whatever political power, resources, and/or technical expertise you have to work, in collaboration, toward the transfer of both significant power and significant resources from existing careceral institutions to Black families and communities. The road abolitionists propose is not easy, but I have no doubt it is the only road that will ultimately address the overwhelming violence wrought by carceral systems. We would all do well to heed their words.
- Nancy D. Polikoff & Jane M. Spinak, Foreword: Strengthened Bonds: Abolishing the Child Welfare System and Re-Envisioning Child Well-Being, 11 Colum. J. Race & L. 429 (2021).
- Dorothy Roberts, How I Became a Family Policing Abolitionist, 11 Colum. J. Race & L. 455 (2021).
- Critical Resistance, Reformist Reforms vs Abolitionist Steps in Policing (May 2021).