Children of the State

Abolishing the U.S. Foster Care System: Exposing Systemic Oppression & Injustice

Imagine a world where a government agency was taking children from poor and defenseless families. Imagine the trauma inflicted to those children, that are ripped from their family and handed to strangers, who see them as a paycheck. For many millions of Americans this is not some dystopian future, for myself and many of my friends; this is a reality, and the United States Health and Human Services Department, foster care system is that agency.

The U.S. has made many attempts to reform the foster care system, a system whose roots run deep with bloody genocides, torture, and class oppression (Lash, 23). A system founded on orphan trains, which shipped poor immigrant children from east to west to save them, “from the evil influence of their parents and placing them with good American Protestant families,” (Lash, 20). A system founded in removing Indigenous and Black children from their families to be raised by, middle-class whites (Loakmdis). To date there stands a mountain of research showing that “hundreds, if not thousands, of reports have designated child welfare as a broken system,” (Merkel). I argue that the foster care systems policy and structuring is intentionally profiting from the active oppression of minorities and the poor. Since the foster care system is intentionally detrimental to the welfare and happiness of children and families abolition is the best policy with which to proceed.

Perhaps the most dangerous piece of legislation that serves to protect the state and injure families is an antiquated act which grants state employees unchecked ability to lie under oath. It is a little known fact that “the states employees are granted, immunity to perjury charges in child welfare cases” (Sailer). When my son Zion was taken for neglect and I demanded accountability for the state's corruption, the courts and Zion’s case workers; committed perjury, refused to admit my recordings of misconduct to the record, and even framed me for murder. If that was not enough the state prevented me from contacting press by using gag orders and threats of placing my son in dangerous and distant group homes to silence me. I spent years obsessing over the systematic oppression that current legislation for the foster care system perpetuates. After much research, I began to suspect that the foster care system existed to serve private interests and government.

According to Dorothy Roberts of Penn State University, of the millions of children who enter foster care “only 17 percent of children who enter foster care are in the system because they were physically or sexually abused.” (Roberts). Roberts goes on to explain that the vast majority of children are removed for neglect. A central theme to my sons case and the vast majority of child welfare cases according to Roberts is poverty and neglect are synonyms to the system. As history has repeatedly shown the tentacles of the state could be heroes of the people or the monsters that keep kids up at night. So obviously, we, the citizens, should have a way to hold the state accountable if it lied in court or on paperwork to fill the coffers of its interests, right? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but with the state's ability to commit perjury, we add a dash of bias, a heaping tablespoon of systematic racism, bake at 350* of unchecked power; and America has a recipe for disaster.

I nor anyone else who would argue for abolishing the foster care system would argue that children should be left in abusive homes. Joseph Doyle, a professor at MIT, conducted a study of 15,000 individuals who interacted with the foster care system. Doyle's study concluded that children taken for neglect faired far better later in life when left in neglectful homes. Even more upsetting is the fact that this was also true of children left in abusive homes (Doyle). Doyle's body of work spans multiple decades of foster children; in conclusion, Doyle states, "it does not appear that foster care is supporting a protective role." (Doyle 25). What role does foster care serve if not protective. If foster care is not protective and it is a form oppression how can families defend themselves.

Many states claim the foster care system is flawless with no empirical evidence states like Arizona claim that less than 1/10th of one percent of children in state care where abused or neglected in its care. Arizona’s statements are more than just false they are extremely dangerous, with many researchers saying that reporting of issues within foster care is severely flawed with an article for the New York Times stating “child welfare agency has shown a ''routine failure'' to adequately investigate allegations of abuse and neglect in foster homes and state-run institutions, leaving thousands of children under its care at risk of harm.” (Kaufman)

A drastic shift occurred in the response to child welfare under the Clinton administration. Two policies stand out as causing catastrophic harm to the welfare of Americas poor families, shifting the burden of welfare from the state to the poor. The infamous welfare to work program and AFSA. The Adoption and Safe Families Act (AFSA) required termination of parental rights in under a year, and gave states adoption bounties. These factors combined to prevent family reunification and encouraged adoptions for profit (Cilia).

In my sons case The Clintons welfare to work program insured that since I was working I did not qualify for TANF (Temporary Assistance For Needy Families), keeping my household in a perpetual state of poverty and vulnerable for removal due to neglect. When the local child welfare agency noticed this poverty and took my son, AFSA drove the states financial incentive to force termination and adopt my son out to the first person they could find with more money.

In my families case there was a particularly destructive piece of legislation which serves to punish the poor families involved in foster care the bill is Ronald Reagans "Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984". The child support enforcement bill allowed for garnishing of poor families wages for foster care costs incurred by the state. One of the few studies to address the effects of this found that “Our estimate suggested that charging a hundred dollars a month in child support increased the time that a child was out of home by about six months, (Cancian)" This issue compounds with AFSA’S speedy adoption time frames to make the process of reunification nearly impossible for poor parents.

I am all to familiar with this issue, in my case state, charged me 30,000$ in foster care costs in 8 months of court battles;to make matters worse the attorney lied and said they wherent going to charge me any. Than six month in having spent my savings on trying to meet there rediciulous expectations trying to make a poor mans house middl class they cut loose with a 20,000$ bill for child care costs incurred by the state. With only 35,000$ a year working two jobs fulltime; one job unironically teaching snowboarding to kids. Leaving me with less than $10,000 dollars to maintain a lifestyle fit for a child. Additionally the state receives a federal stipend of $10,000 per child in total additionally an adoption bounty is given to the state for a speedy adoption (Brico). By my calculations with the AFSAS speedy adoption policy, the state took in roughly $40,000 dollars in one year. The government spends roughly $70,000 dollars per child, while an average of only $7,000.00 per child per year to foster families (Gallegos). Meanwhile my sons caretakers an incredibly kind and loving white-middle-class family only received $2,600 for the year leading up to his adoption.

(Roberts). What is adequate to a middle class public servant like child welfare agents, or judges, is very much different from what is adequate for someone in poverty. The issue isn’t whether neglect should be accepted or encouraged but we should ask what lead to the United States having a higher rate of removal for neglect than most any other country, and more child poverty than most other first world nations. (Roberts). It may well be the philosophy of the American capitalist system that is to blame. The ephemeral image of white picket houses, white-middle-class suburbia that makes the system tick (Lokamdis). The thought that there is always a bigger house, a faster car, another poor sluggish individual to be passed on the road to capital. Children though do not concern themselves with such things from the perspective of a child poverty is an entirely different experience than that of the adult mind trying to survive under the class oppression of capitalism. Imagine if you will, giving the struggling families the $70,000 squandered for the care provided by the state, suddenly parents have more time to spend in the home when not forced to work beyond reasonable hours to simply pay for the most basic of necessities, the quality of life increases and unintentional neglect disappears; but then who would the state have left to kidnap for profit?

Very rarely are biological parents charged with a crime in foster care cases (Roberts). This is not because neglect and abuse are not criminal charges. The reason for this is that the state’s case for child separation in neglect cases is an attack on families in poverty. The state operates in secrecy in closed family courts, not public courts. Biological parents do not have fourth and fifth amendment rights. Biological parents do not have the right to an attorney. With parents gagged by court order, Americas prison industrial complex has yet again found a way to profit from pitting the most powerful against the most vulnerable.

In 2018 state and federal governments spent an average of 79,136.69$ per child in foster care (Stoltzfus). The vast majority of the money is not benefitting the children it is either ending up in the hands of administrators, state employees, politicians, or private interests. I saw since the inception of my son's removal, a network dedicated to profiting from our tragedy and our poverty. The Caseworkers falsely stated in a closed court and on paper that I was bipolar, homeless, drug-addicted and that my son was mentally disabled and not receiving help. Despite the allegations being false the state spent six months stalling my sons return with lengthy mental health evaluations. We were referred to the local mental health building that the judge was invested in, and I had to pay 100$ a week for drug tests that I passed. Pharmaceutical drug companies reap millions in profits from foster children with children in foster care 4 times more likely to be medicated (Zito); in some states especially those with more privatization of care the rate of psychotropic drug prescriptions is as much as 27 times higher (Black). The reason for this is that the state finds the children are easier to deal with when drugged.

The biggest reason to abolish foster care is truly the dangers of foster homes and Privately run youth homes. Rates of physical and sexual abuse in foster home are 2 to 3 times higher than that of the general population (Benedict). The rate of physical and sexual abuse was 28 times higher in group homes than found in the public (Spencer). These facilities are run by groups like Sequel. Sequel became the focus of a national scandal when employees restrained 15-year-old Fredrick Cornelius for throwing a sandwich, killing him. NBC news reported on Fredricks case stating that he said “I can't breathe" while he was restrained. After releasing Cornelius, staff members tried to sit him up, but his body fell back limp, the video shows. Cornelius urinated on himself during the restraint (Kinkade).” The video shows sequel staff as they continued to lay on top of Cornelius for more than 10 minutes after he stopped moving. After sequel staff waits another five minutes to attempt CPR or calling emergency services. The video shows nearly 10 adults, that where entrusted to care for Cornelius standing by as he is dying.

Many of my friends have experience with the foster care system, none of it good, much of it more horrifying than most could imagine. The children already traumatized by separation from their parents are traumatized again by the system (Shockley). In two such cases, my friend Tam-Tam, and another friend Spirit, were severely beaten by their foster families, locked in cages, and physically and sexually abused. Both Tam-Tam and Spirit reported these abuses to their caseworkers. When Tam-Tam told her caseworker that she was violently raped by her foster family and witnessed her foster family using a dumbbell to smash the skull of a six-month-old in the foster home; her caseworker said she was "A little whore, who should not be lying about her good Christian foster family." (Tam-Tam was from a poor Jewish family). The intersectionality of oppression becomes almost glaring, when a heavily skewed view dominated by white exceptionalism abuse, and subjugation occurs even in foster homes.