25 research outputs found
An Unintended Abolition: Family Regulation During the COVID-19 Crisis
In a typical year, New York Cityâs vast family regulation system, fueled by an army of mandated reporters, investigates tens of thousands of reports of child neglect and abuse, policing almost exclusively poor Black and Latinx families even as the government provides those families extremely limited support. When the City shut down in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this system shrunk in almost every conceivable way as mandated reporters retreated, caseworkers adopted less intrusive investigatory tactics, and family courts constrained their operations. The number of reports fell, the number of cases filed in court fell, and the number of children separated from their parents fell.
At the same time, families found support elsewhere, through suddenly burgeoning mutual aid networks and infusions of new government entitlements. This large-scale reconfiguration of the family regulation system represents a short-term experiment in abolition: in this period, New Yorkers moved away from a system that oppressed poor Black and Latinx people and not only envisioned but built a more democratic and humane model to protect families.
As this Piece demonstrates, under this new model, families remained just as safe. Data from the courts and from the cityâs Administration for Childrenâs Services reveal that there was no rise in child neglect or abuse during the shutdown period. Furthermore, once the City began to re-open, there was no perceivable ârebound effect,â that is, no delayed, compensatory rise in reports. This Piece positions the COVID-19 shutdown period as a successful case study, demonstrating one possible future absent the massive, oppressive apparatus of the family regulation system
The Empty Promise of the Fourth Amendment in the Family Regulation System
Each year, state agents search the homes of hundreds of thousands of families across the United States under the auspices of the family regulation system. Through these searchesârequired elements of investigations into allegations of child maltreatment in virtually every jurisdictionâstate agents invade the home, the most protected space in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Accordingly, federal courts agree that the Fourth Amendmentâs warrant requirement applies to family regulation home searches. But almost universally, the abstract recognition of Fourth Amendment protections runs up against a concrete expectation on the ground that state actors should have easy and expansive access to familiesâ homes. Legislatures mandate searches and loosen warrant requirements; executive agencies coerce consent from families and seek court orders that violate the Fourth Amendment; and the judiciary rubberstamps these efforts and fails to hold the executive and the legislative branches to their constitutional obligations. Families under investigationâwho are almost all poor and are disproportionately Black, Latinx, and Nativeâare left with nowhere to retreat.
This Article argues that the casual home invasions of the family regulation system are not just another story of lawless state action carried out by rogue actors or of an adversarial system failing to function. Instead, this is a story of a problem-solving system functioning exactly as it was designed. The problem-solving model emphasizes informality, information-gathering, and cooperationâvalues that sit uncomfortably with the individual rights-based principles underlying the Fourth Amendment. By uniting each branch of government in a project of surveillance, the problem-solving model reduces the potency of the separation of powers as a check on government overreach, while at the same time undercutting checks and balances outside the separation of powers. Protecting individual rights and preventing government overreach in the family regulation system will require more than rejecting the problem-solving model in favor of an adversarial model, as the criminal legal system shows. Guided by the heuristic of non-reformist reforms, the Article suggests a continuum of measuresâsome immediate, some over the course of generationsâthat will unravel the family regulation systemâs wide net of surveillance and safeguard the welfare of children in a holistic sense. Ultimately, we must fundamentally rethink âchild welfare servicesâ and move from a model that holds individuals responsible for large-scale societal problems to one that addresses those problems on a societal level
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An Unintended Abolition
In a typical year, New York Cityâs vast family regulation system, fueled by an army of mandated reporters, investigates tens of thousands of reports of child neglect and abuse, policing almost exclusively poor Black and Latinx families even as the government provides those families extremely limited support. When the City shut down in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this system shrunk in almost every conceivable way as mandated reporters retreated, caseworkers adopted less intrusive investigatory tactics, and family courts constrained their operations. Reports fell, the number of cases filed in court fell, and the number of children separated from their parents fell. At the same time, families found support elsewhere, through suddenly burgeoning mutual aid networks and infusions of new government entitlements. This large-scale reconfiguration of the family regulation system represents a short-term experiment in abolition: in this period, New Yorkers moved away from a system that oppressed poor Black and Latinx people and not only envisioned but built a more democratic and humane model to protect families.
As this Article demonstrates, under this new model, families remained just as safe. Data from the courts and from the cityâs Administration for Childrenâs Services reveal that there was no rise in child neglect or abuse during the shutdown period. Furthermore, once the City began to re-open, there was no perceivable ârebound effect,â i.e. a delayed, compensatory rise in reports. This Article positions the COVID-19 shutdown period as a successful case study, demonstrating one possible future absent the massive, oppressive apparatus of the family regulation system
Dislocation and Relocation: Women in the Federal Prison System and Repurposing FCI Danbury for Men
(Excerpt)
This Report tracks the lack of progress in keeping federal prison space in the Northeast available for women and the impact of the absence of bed-spaces for women on the implementation of federal policies committed to reducing over-incarceration. The problems began in the summer of 2013, when the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announced plans to transform its only prison for women in the NortheastâFCI Danburyâinto a facility for men. The BOP explained that this self-described âmission changeâ was a response to the need to provide more low-security beds for male prisoners
Factors associated with the quality of life of family carers of people with dementia: a systematic review
Introduction: Family carers of people with dementia are their most important support in practical, personal and economic terms. Carers are vital to maintaining the quality of life (QOL) of people with dementia. This review aims to identify factors related to the QOL of family carers of people with dementia.
Methods: Searches on terms including âcarersâ, âdementiaâ, âfamilyâ and âquality of lifeâ in research databases. Findings were synthesised inductively, grouping factors associated with carer QOL into themes.
Results: 909 abstracts were identified. Following screening, lateral searches and quality appraisal, 41 studies (n=5,539) were included for synthesis. Ten themes were identified: demographics; carer-patient relationship; dementia characteristics; demands of caring; carer health; carer emotional wellbeing; support received; carer independence; carer self-efficacy; and future.
Discussion: The quality and level of evidence supporting each theme varied. We need further research on what factors predict carer QOL in dementia and how to measure it
Snowpack characteristics on steep frozen rock slopes
Data from 27 snow profiles taken in frozen rock walls at two sites in the Swiss Alps reveal that steep slopes have distinctive snowpack characteristics. Snow pits were dug in 50â65° slopes at elevations between 2900 and 3600masl on north- and south- facing slopes at Gemsstock and Jungfraujoch Sphinx in the winters 2012â2013 and 2013â2014. There were marked contrasts in snow characteristics between the two aspects, yet strong inter-site similarities. Under the influence of intense solar radiation, basal ice layers and multiple hard melt-freeze crusts formed on the south-facing slopes. Soft layers of facets and depth hoar developed between the crusts. On the shady north-facing slopes, thick basal melt-freeze crusts formed when snow persisted during stable weather periods in autumn. The dominant snow grain types in winter were facets and depth hoar. When solar elevation exceeded slope angle from mid- April onwards, gravity-driven percolation of melt water flowing parallel to the frozen rock surface from areas with warm protruding rocks led to the formation of thick basal ice layers in the north-facing slopes. Windward slopes were covered with rime and glaze during storms, regardless of aspect and season. Despite widespread snowpack instability, the formation of large slab avalanches was hindered by the pronounced roughness of the rock surfaces. The main drivers contributing to the distinctive character of snow covers in frozen rock walls are the negative rock surface temperatures, enhanced/minimized solar radiation and multidirectional fluxes of water, vapour and heat induced by the steepness of the rock slopes
Re-Imagining Lawyering: Bringing Abolition Into the 1L Curriculum
(Excerpt)
This year, my 1L students began law school the same week that police shot and paralyzed Jacob Blake. As they learned criminal law in the Fall, they also learned that a grand jury had failed to indict the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor. And this Spring, they began studying for their final exams just as Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd and as police shot and killed 15-year-old MaâKhia Bryant. They entered the legal profession the same year that millions took to the streets, demanding a reckoning with the racist hierarchies underpinning this countryâs legal system â a reckoning that, for many, requires the abolition of the police and the criminal legal system as it exists now.
My students, like students around the country, grappled with what abolition might look like and what it might mean to be a lawyer working within a legal system reflects and entrenches existing racial, class, and gender hierarchies. Yet even as students struggled with these weighty questions, they remained largely unaddressed in the standard 1L curriculum
Jenny Mollen, Jason Biggs, and How Race and Class Shape the Aftermath of Childhood Accidents
(Excerpt)
On April 17, actress Jenny Mollen and her husband Jason Biggs revealed on Instagram that she had dropped her 5-year-old son the weekend prior, fracturing his skull and leading to a stay in the ICU. Ms. Mollen thanked the doctors who treated him and reported that her son was home recovering after a âtraumatic week.â She closed by saying, âMy heart goes out to all parents who have or will ever find themselves in this kind of position. You are not alone.â
But the truth is, far too many parents do end up alone, with their children snatched from their arms, after accidents as common as Ms. Mollenâs. The difference for these parents: they are poor, they are people of color, and they do not have the benefit of the doubt from child services