Jane Crow and the Abolition of Family Policing

Abstract

The Texas governor's weaponization of caseworkers to investigate parents of transgender minors combined with the murder of six adoptees in 2018 is an inflection point of child welfare. Since 2000, multiple investigations have depicted child welfare as racist surveillance of poor families. The Detlaff affair demonstrates the existence of a cartel in child welfare, protecting a retrograde status quo. Restructuring children's services is proposed, ending a half-century experiment of low-income, minority families.