Introduction to Family Policing Abolition
MODULE FOUR
Manifestations of Surveillance, Regulation, and Punishment in the Afterlife of Slavery
Building from Module Three’s discussion of the origins of the modern child welfare system, Module Four presents an overview of the carceral logic that undergirds today’s child welfare system and the functions of surveillance, regulation, and punishment that emerge from this carceral logic.
Module Four also describes the ways in which these functions of surveillance, regulation, and punishment are rooted in the mechanisms used to maintain the oppression of Black people during the era of chattel slavery and have since evolved to achieve this same purpose through today’s family policing system.
The Carceral Logic of the Family Policing System
The Carceral Logic of the Family Policing System, Emma Peyton Williams
Police Reform and Carceral Logic with Christy Lopez, Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library
Mechanisms of Surveillance
Family Surveillance by Algorithm: The Rapidly Spreading Tools Few Have Heard Of, American Civil Liberties Union
Regulating Families
Survived and Coerced: Epistemic Injustice in the Family Regulation System, S. Lisa Washington
On Catching a Case: Fear and Inequality in New York City’s Child Welfare System, We Be Imagining Podcast
Compliance by Punishment
Unlearning Punishment: Family Policing Abolition as Liberatory Praxis, Victoria Copeland, Brianna Harvey, & Joyce McMillan
Caring for Children by Punishing Parents, Shanta Trivedi
FOR FURTHER READING
Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, Simone Browne
Catching a Case: Inequality and Fear in New York City’s Child Welfare System, Tina Lee
Cheating Welfare: Public Assistance and the Criminalization of Poverty, Kaaryn S. Gustafson
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