From leading abolitionist organizers, a much-needed intervention arguing that the systems that purport to protect children make our communities less safe for them.

Based on decades of shared organizing, study, and lived experience, the contributors to How to End Family Policing argue that the child welfare system cannot build genuine safety. Rather than the misleading language of “child welfare” and “child protective services,” scholars and activists use the term “family policing” to name the fact that these institutions and practices are neither neutral nor benign.

Black, Indigenous, and Latinx parents do not mistreat their children at higher rates than white parents. Yet 53 percent of all Black children in the United States will experience a child protective services investigation before the age of eighteen.

Offering first-person testimony, alternatives to family policing, and definitions of key concepts, this book is an urgent call to build flourishing communities.