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  • Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--And How Abolition Can Build a Safer World by Dorothy Roberts book cover
  • Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--And How Abolition Can Build a Safer World by Dorothy Roberts book cover
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Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--And How Abolition Can Build a Safer World

by Dorothy Roberts

A critique of child welfare as family policing

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Awards & Recognition

  • Award recognition

    Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest finalist

    Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest.

  • Critical praise

    Praised by Michelle Alexander as “a brilliant and impassioned call for abolition”

    Michelle Alexander praises the book as “a brilliant and impassioned call for abolition.”

AlbakiReads Editorial

A critique of child welfare as family policing

Dorothy Roberts frames the child welfare system as a form of family policing, connecting its investigations and interventions to broader systems of law enforcement and incarceration. Drawing on decades of research, the book examines the disproportionate surveillance of Black families and the separation of Black children from their families. Its central argument is that reform is not enough: Roberts calls for abolishing the child welfare system and building alternatives grounded in the liberation of Black communities. The book brings public policy, race, family separation, and the role of the state into a single argument about how safety might be pursued.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in racial justice and public policy
  • Those studying child welfare, foster care, or family policing
  • Readers exploring abolitionist approaches to social systems

Themes

Racial inequalityChild welfare and family policingState surveillanceFamily separationAbolition

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

An award-winning scholar and author of Killing the Black Body exposes the foundational racism of the child welfare system

"A brilliant and impassioned call for abolition." --Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

Many believe the child welfare system protects children from abuse. But as Torn Apart uncovers, this system is designed to punish Black families. Drawing on decades of research, legal scholar and sociologist Dorothy Roberts reveals that the child welfare system is better understood as a "family policing system" that collaborates with law enforcement and prisons to oppress Black communities. Child protection investigations ensnare a majority of Black children, putting their families under intense state surveillance and regulation. Black children are disproportionately likely to be torn from their families and placed in foster care, driving many to juvenile detention and imprisonment.

The only way to stop the destruction caused by family policing, Torn Apart argues, is to abolish the child welfare system and liberate Black communities.

Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest
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