This study shows that state efforts at child protection are structured by the policy regimes in which they are enmeshed. Using administrative data on child protection, criminal justice, and social welfare interventions, I show that children are separated from their families and placed into foster care far more frequently in states with extensive and punitive criminal justice systems than in states with broad and generous welfare programs. However, large welfare bureaucracies interact with welfare program enrollment to create opportunities for the surveillance of families, suggesting that extensive and administratively complex welfare states engage in “soft” social control through the surveillance and regulation of family behavior. The article further shows that institutionalization, a particularly restrictive form of foster care placement, is least common in states with broad and generous welfare regimes and generally more common under punitive regimes. Taken together, these findings show that policy regimes influence the interaction between families and the state through their proximate effects on family structure and well-being and through institutional effects that delimit the routines and scripts through which policymakers and street-level bureaucrats intervene to protect children.
AdolphChristopher. 2013b. Tile: Plot Multiple Graphical Displays in a Tiled Layout with Automated or Customizable Titles, Axes, and Annotations. Seattle: University of Washington (http://faculty.washington.edu/cadolph/software).
4.
AndersenSigne HaldWildemanChristopher. 2014. “The Effect of Paternal Incarceration on Children’s Risk of Foster Care Placement.” Social Forces93(1):269–98.
5.
Annie E. Casey Foundation. 2009. Rightsizing Congregate Care. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation.
6.
Annie E. Casey Foundation. 2012. Stepping Up For Kids. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation.
7.
BarkerVanessa. 2006. “The Politics of Punishing: Building a State Governance Theory of American Imprisonment Variation.” Punishment & Society8(1):5–32.
8.
BarkerVanessa. 2009. The Politics of Imprisonment: How the Democratic Process Shapes the Way America Punishes Offenders. New York: Oxford University Press.
9.
BartholetElizabeth. 1999. Nobody’s Children: Abuse and Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative. Boston: Beacon Press.
10.
BatesDouglasMaechlerMartinBolkerBenjamin M.WalkerSteven. 2014. “lme4: Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using Eigen and S4.” Journal of Statistical Software67(1):1–48.
11.
BeckettKatherine. 1997. Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.
12.
BeckettKatherineWesternBruce. 2001. “Governing Social Marginality: Welfare, Incarceration, and the Transformation of State Policy.” Punishment & Society3(1):43–59.
13.
BerryWilliam D.RingquistEvan J.FordingRichard C.HansonRussell L.1998. “Measuring Citizen and Government Ideology in the American States, 1960–93.” American Journal of Political Science42(1):327–48.
14.
BestJoel. 1993. Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern about Child-Victims. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
15.
BolkerBenjamin M.BrooksMollie E.ClarkConnie J.GeangeShane W.PoulsenJohn R.StevensM. Henry H.WhiteJada-Simone S.2009. “Generalized Linear Mixed Models: A Practical Guide for Ecology and Evolution.” Trends in Ecology & Evolution24(3):127–35.
16.
BourdieuPierre. 1998. Acts of Resistance: Against the Tyranny of the Market. New York: New Press.
17.
BramanDonald. 2007. Doing Time on the Outside: Incarceration and Family Life in Urban America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
18.
BrownHana E.2013a. “Racialized Conflict and Policy Spillover Effects: The Role of Race in the Contemporary U.S. Welfare State.” American Journal of Sociology119(2):394–443.
19.
BrownHana E.2013b. “The New Racial Politics of Welfare: Ethno-Racial Diversity, Immigration, and Welfare Discourse Variation.” Social Service Review87(3):586–612.
20.
BruchSarah K.FerreeMyra MarxSossJoe. 2010. “From Policy to Polity: Democracy, Paternalism, and the Incorporation of Disadvantaged Citizens.” American Sociological Review75(2):205–226.
21.
BursteinPaul. 1991. “Policy Domains: Organization, Culture, and Policy Outcomes.” Annual Review of Sociology17:327–50.
22.
CampbellMichael C.SchoenfeldHeather. 2013. “The Transformation of America’s Penal Order: A Historicized Political Sociology of Punishment.” American Journal of Sociology118(5):1375–1423.
23.
Children’s Bureau. 2013a. Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), FFY 2012 [Dataset]. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (http://www.ndacan.cornell.edu).
24.
Children’s Bureau. 2013b. National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) Child File, FFY 2012 [Dataset]. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (http://www.ndacan.cornell.edu).
25.
ComfortMegan. 2008. Doing Time Together: Love and Family in the Shadow of the Prison. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
26.
ConnellyDana. 2014. “State Child Welfare Policy: Causes and Consequences.” Dissertation, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY.
27.
CourtneyMark E.DworskyAmyPiliavinIrvingZinnAndrew. 2005. “Involvement of TANF Applicant Families with Child Welfare Services.” Social Service Review79(1):119–57.
DeVooghtKerry. 2014. Federal, State, and Local Spending to Address Child Abuse and Neglect in SFY 2012. Washington, DC: Child Trends.
30.
DiMaggioPaul J.1997. “Culture and Cognition.” Annual Review of Sociology23:263–87.
31.
DiMaggioPaul J.PowellWalter W.1983. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review48(2):147–60.
32.
DonzelotJacques. 1997. The Policing of Families. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins.
33.
EllermannAntje. 2009. States against Migrants: Deportation in Germany and the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press.
34.
EpsteinWilliam M.1999. Children Who Could Have Been: The Legacy of Child Welfare in Wealthy America. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
35.
Esping-AndersenGøsta. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
36.
FordingRichard C.SossJoeSchramSanford F.2011. “Race and the Local Politics of Punishment in the New World of Welfare.” American Journal of Sociology116(5):1610–57.
37.
FosterHollyHaganJohn. 2015. “Punishment Regimes and the Multilevel Effects of Parental Incarceration: Intergenerational, Intersectional, and Interinstitutional Models of Social Inequality and Exclusion.” Annual Review of Sociology41:135–58.
38.
FoucaultMichel. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books.
39.
FoucaultMichel. 2003. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège De France, 1975–76. New York: Picador.
40.
FoxCybelle. 2010. “Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and Public and Private Social Welfare Spending in American Cities, 1929.” American Journal of Sociology116(2):453–502.
41.
GainsboroughJuliet F.2010. Scandalous Politics: Child Welfare Policy in the States. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
42.
GarlandDavid. 1987. Punishment and Welfare: A History of Penal Strategies. Aldershot, UK: Gower.
43.
GarlandDavid. 2001. The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
44.
GellerAmandaGarfinkelIrwinCooperCarey E.MincyRonald B.2009. “Parental Incarceration and Child Well-Being: Implications for Urban Families.” Social Science Quarterly90(5):1186–1202.
45.
GelmanAndrewHillJennifer. 2007. Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models. New York: Cambridge University Press.
46.
GilensMartin. 2000. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
47.
GilliomJohn. 2001. Overseers of the Poor: Surveillance, Resistance, and the Limits of Privacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
48.
GolashDeirdre. 2006. The Case against Punishment: Retribution, Crime Prevention, and the Law. New York: New York University Press.
49.
GordonLinda. 1986. “Family Violence, Feminism, and Social Control.” Feminist Studies12(3):453–78.
50.
GordonLinda. 1989. Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence. New York: Penguin Books.
51.
GordonLinda. 1998. Pitied but Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare 1890–1935. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
52.
GottschalkMarie. 2006. The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America. New York: Cambridge University Press.
53.
HackerJacob S.2002. The Divided Welfare State: The Battle over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press.
54.
HackerJacob S.2004. “Privatizing Risk without Privatizing the Welfare State: The Hidden Politics of Social Policy Retrenchment in the United States.” American Political Science Review98(2):243–60.
55.
HaneyLynne A.2000. “Feminist State Theory: Applications to Jurisprudence, Criminology, and the Welfare State.” Annual Review of Sociology26:641–66.
56.
HarrisonXavier A.2014. “Using Observation-Level Random Effects to Model Overdispersion in Count Data in Ecology and Evolution.” PeerJ Computer Science2:e616.
57.
HonakerJamesKingGary. 2010. “What to Do About Missing Values in Time Series Cross-Section Data.” American Journal of Political Science54(3):561–81.
58.
HonakerJamesKingGaryBlackwellMatthew. 2011. “Amelia II: A Program for Missing Data.” Journal of Statistical Software45(7):1–47.
59.
HooksGregoryMcQueenBrian. 2010. “American Exceptionalism Revisited: The Military-Industrial Complex, Racial Tension, and the Underdeveloped Welfare State.” American Sociological Review75(2):185–204.
60.
JackmanMary R.1994. The Velvet Glove: Paternalism and Conflict in Gender, Class, and Race Relations. Berkeley: University of California Press.
61.
JacobsDavidHelmsRonald. 2001. “Toward a Political Sociology of Punishment: Politics and Changes in the Incarcerated Population.” Social Science Research30(2):171–94.
62.
KeenBradleyJacobsDavid. 2009. “Racial Threat, Partisan Politics, and Racial Disparities in Prison Admissions: A Panel Analysis.” Criminology47(1):209–238.
63.
KingGaryTomzMichaelWittenbergJason. 2000. “Making the Most of Statistical Analyses: Improving Interpretation and Presentation.” American Journal of Political Science44(2):347–61.
64.
KingRyan D.2008. “Conservatism, Institutionalism, and the Social Control of Intergroup Conflict.” American Journal of Sociology113(5):1351–93.
65.
LaceyNicola. 2010. “American Imprisonment in Comparative Perspective.” Daedalus139(3):102–14.
66.
LindseyDuncan. 2004. The Welfare of Children. New York: Oxford University Press.
67.
LynchMona. 2009. Sunbelt Justice: Arizona and the Transformation of American Punishment. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
68.
MacomberJennifer Ehrle. 2003. Kinship Foster Care: Custody, Hardships, and Services. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
69.
MeyersMarcia K.GornickJanet C.PeckLaura R.2001. “Packaging Support for Low-Income Families: Policy Variation across the United States.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management20(3):457–83.
70.
MullerChristopher. 2012. “Northward Migration and the Rise of Racial Disparity in American Incarceration, 1880–1950.” American Journal of Sociology118(2):281–326.
71.
NelsonBarbara J.1986. Making an Issue of Child Abuse: Political Agenda Setting for Social Problems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
72.
PageJoshua. 2011. The Toughest Beat: Politics, Punishment, and the Prison Officers Union in California. New York: Oxford University Press.
73.
PeltonLeroy H.1989. For Reasons of Poverty: A Critical Analysis of the Public Child Welfare System in the United States. New York: Praeger Publishers.
74.
PerryBrea L.2006. “Understanding Social Network Disruption: The Case of Youth in Foster Care.” Social Problems53(3):371–91.
75.
PettitBecky. 2012. Invisible Men: Mass Incarceration and the Myth of Black Progress. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Publications.
76.
PfohlStephen J.1977. “The ‘Discovery’ of Child Abuse.” Social Problems24(3):310–23.
77.
PiersonPaul. 2000. “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics.” American Political Science Review94(2):251–67.
78.
PivenFrances FoxClowardRichard. 1993. Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare. New York: Vintage.
79.
PlattAnthony M.1969. The Child Savers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
80.
PolskyAndrew J.1993. The Rise of the Therapeutic State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
81.
QuadagnoJill. 1994. The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty. New York: Oxford University Press.
82.
R Core Team. 2014. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing (http://www.R-project.org).
83.
ReichJennifer A.2005. Fixing Families: Parents, Power, and the Child Welfare System. New York: Routledge.
84.
RobertsDorothy E.2002. Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare. New York: Basic Civitas Books.
85.
RobertsDorothy E.2008. “The Racial Geography of Child Welfare: Toward a New Research Paradigm.” Child Welfare87(2):125–50.
86.
RobertsDorothy E.2012. “Prison, Foster Care, and the Systemic Punishment of Black Mothers.” UCLA Law Review59:1474–99.
87.
RubinDonald B.1996. “Multiple Imputation after 18+ Years.” Journal of the American Statistical Association91(434):473–89.
88.
RugglesStevenGenadekKatieGoekenRonaldGroverJosiahSobekMatthew. 2010. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 5.0 [Machine-Readable Database]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
89.
SedlakAndrea J.MettenburgJaneBasenaMonicaPettaIanMcPhersonKarlaGreenAngelaLiSpencer. 2010. Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-4). Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services.
90.
ShatzkinKate. 2015. Every Kid Needs a Family: Giving Children in the Child Welfare System the Best Chance for Success. Baltimore, MD: The Annie E. Casey Foundation.
91.
SimonJonathan. 1993. Poor Discipline. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
92.
SimonJonathan. 2009. Governing through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear. New York: Oxford University Press.
93.
SossJoeFordingRichard C.SchramSanford. 2011. Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
94.
SuttonJohn R.2013. “The Transformation of Prison Regimes in Late Capitalist Societies.” American Journal of Sociology119(3):715–46.
95.
SwannChristopher A.SylvesterMichelle Sheran. 2006. “The Foster Care Crisis: What Caused Caseloads to Grow?” Demography43(2):309–335.
96.
SwartzTeresa Toguchi. 2005. Parenting for the State: An Ethnographic Analysis of Non-Profit Foster Care. New York: Routledge.
97.
SykesBryan L.PettitBecky. 2014. “Mass Incarceration, Family Complexity, and the Reproduction of Childhood Disadvantage.” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science654(1):127–49.
98.
TanenhausDavid. 2004. Juvenile Justice in the Making. New York: Oxford University Press.
99.
TonryMichael. 2007. “Determinants of Penal Policies.” Crime and Justice36(1):1–48.
100.
United States Department of Justice. 2013. National Prisoner Statistics, 1978–2011. Washington, DC: Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
101.
University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research (UKCPR). 2014. UKCPR National Welfare Data, 1980–2013. Lexington, KY: Gatton College of Business and Economics, University of Kentucky.
102.
WakefieldSaraWildemanChristopher. 2014. Children of the Prison Boom: Mass Incarceration and the Future of American Inequality. New York: Oxford University Press.
103.
WeirMargaretOrloffAnn SholaSkocpolTheda, eds. 1988. The Politics of Social Policy in the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
104.
WelchKellyPayneAllison Ann. 2010. “Racial Threat and Punitive School Discipline.” Social Problems57(1):25–48.
105.
WesternBruceWildemanChristopher. 2009. “The Black Family and Mass Incarceration.” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science621(1):221–42.
106.
WildemanChristopherAndersenSigne HaldLeeHedwigKarlsonKristian Bernt. 2014. “Parental Incarceration and Child Mortality in Denmark.” American Journal of Public Health104(3):428–33.
107.
WildemanChristopherEmanuelNatalia. 2014. “Cumulative Risks of Foster Care Placement by Age 18 for U.S. Children, 2000–2011.” PLoS ONE9(3):e92785.
108.
WildemanChristopherWaldfogelJane. 2014. “Somebody’s Children or Nobody’s Children? How the Sociological Perspective Could Enliven Research on Foster Care.” Annual Review of Sociology40(1):599–618.
109.
WulczynFredGibbonsRobertSnowdenLonnieLeryBridgette. 2013. “Poverty, Social Disadvantage, and the Black/White Placement Gap.” Children and Youth Services Review35(1):65–74.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
