Abstract
Catching a Case: Inequality and Fear in New York City’s Child Welfare System describes how the child welfare system falls short of its charge by focusing on poverty-related neglect rather than serious abuse and setting families and parents up to fail. Anthropologist Tina Lee disavows readers of any notion that the problem of child protection can be traced solely or even mainly to pathological and abusive parents. Her observations and interviews with parents, caseworkers, and others reveal how inequality and fear drive processes that mire low-income parents in an overwhelmed system.
Every day, agency workers and judges make decisions that are motivated by high caseloads, a lack of resources and clear standards, stereotypes, and the fear of another high-profile abuse case. Lee provides a rich description of these daily decisions and their consequences for families. The over-policing and regulation of poor people’s lives that are hallmarks of the American criminal justice system also operate in New York City’s child welfare system. The result is a system of “stratified reproduction” that devalues those “at the bottom of social hierarchies” rather than offering meaningful protection to children or support for families (p. 9).
While Lee’s study focuses on New York City, her observations echo those of other overwhelmed systems. Child welfare has come to focus on surveillance and “erring” on the side of separation and removal rather than family preservation. The system emphasizes parents’ deference and compliance. Parents’ anger toward those who have the power to take away their children “is almost always seen as a problem, even in cases in which the parent’s anger is justifiable, might not be directly related to the harm a child has suffered, or probably does not signal anything about how the parent will treat the child” (p. 143).
Parents’ ability to keep or regain custody of their children frequently hinges on their ability to navigate the daunting challenges of finding or keeping a job and suitable housing and making and keeping appointments for court and mandated services, all while staying connected to their children. Catching a Case is replete with “Catch–22” situations in which the failures of the system to support the families in their charge are used to justify further intervention into families’ lives. This intervention, in turn, leads to a weakening or severing of family ties. It also contributes to a climate of mutual distrust between families and agency workers and family court personnel.
Lee’s analysis is thin in places and sometimes repetitive. Catching a Case would benefit from updating to include more recent statistics and a deeper discussion of some of the promising changes that have been introduced in the 10 years since she undertook her fieldwork. Given the power family court judges wield and Lee’s praise of parent advocates, their perspectives seem important to include. Of the 56 or 57 people Lee interviewed, however, only 2 were family court judges and none were parent advocates.
These shortcomings are offset by the rich insights that Lee’s extensive interviews and observations yielded. For example, Brandon, a family defense attorney, explains that even a separation of 1 or 2 days can inspire a desperate fear in a parent, given that “In the communities they live in […] they know how long it can take to get their kids back” (p. 73).
Catching a Case is recommended for students and scholars of social work and family as well as child welfare workers and family advocates. Family court judges and attorneys, in particular, should take the book’s findings to heart in light of their tendency to rubber stamp child custody decisions made at earlier stages through deeply problematic processes.
Catching a Case reminds readers that the child welfare system’s problems are urgent, even though their widespread and entrenched nature might suggest otherwise. Lee’s work proves to be a valuable contribution and a revealing read.