Parental Criminalization and the Overrepresentation of Black Families in Child Protective Services
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7474248 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Abigail Williams-Butler (Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, corresponding author), Shari Cunningham (West Chester University), Alicia Méndez (0000-0001-8450-3710, Bridgewater State University), Kate Golden Guzman (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Gwendolyn Fowler, Gwendolyn D Fowler (Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey), María Gandarilla Ocampo |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Race and Social Problems (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1867-1748 • E-ISSN: 1867-1756 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s12552-026-09491-3 |
| OpenAlex | W7124417159 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 57 |
Racial disparities within child protective services are widely known. However, little is known about how the language used in historical policy documents related to the passing of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 ultimately criminalized parents along racialized, gendered, and class-based lines. Using intersectionality and stigma as the frameworks and critical discourse analysis as the methodology, the authors analyzed the language and identified four themes which aided in the later criminalization of parents: 1) egregious examples of child abuse, 2) racialized dimensions of parental criminality, 3) gendered dimensions of parental criminality, and 4) class-based dimensions of parental criminality. It is crucial to understand how the first federal child protective services policy in the United States utilized coded and biased language to criminalize parents along racialized, gendered, and class-based notions of inadequate parenting. Implications of how this language later led to the overrepresentation of Black families within child protective services are explored
Child abuse · Child protection · Criminalization · Intersectionality · Poison control · Stigma (botany · Suicide prevention · Child Abuse and Trauma · Homicide, Infanticide, and Child Abuse · Intimate Partner and Family Violence · Social Work
Stigma
Racial Bias in Child Protection? A Comparison of Competing Explanations Using National Data
A General Critical Discourse Analysis Framework for Educational Research
Welfare Warriors
Toward Community Control of Child Welfare Funding
Whiteness in our understanding of culture
Discursive decisions
Protecting Children
Getting Tough
Whitewashing Race
Regulating the Lives of Women
A Meta-Regression of Racial Disparities in Wellbeing Outcomes During and After Foster Care
Concealment and Constraint
Lived Experiences of Racism Among Child Welfare-Involved Parents
Critical Discourse Analysis
Intersectionality and the Overrepresentation of Black Women, children, and families in the child welfare system
Overrepresentation of Black children in the child welfare system
Because I Was a Criminal and Drug Addict.”
Perceptions of and Responses to Stigma
It is not a broken system, it is a system that needs to be broken
Stigma, intersectionality and motherhood
Freaks, gold diggers, divas, and dykes
Mothers’ Narratives of Their Involvement With Child Welfare Services
Presidential Rhetoric and the Power of Definition
Intersectionality and structural gendered racism
Culture as Deficit
Negotiating stigma
The longitudinal effects of after-school program experiences, quantity, and regulatable features on children's social–emotional development
Reimagining Black Conservatism
Lifetime Prevalence of Investigating Child Maltreatment Among US Children
A Pragmatic Definition of the Concept of Theoretical Saturation
The Discursive Construction of Risk
Failed Mothers, Risky Children
Institutional racism in child welfare
Black Feminist Thought
Understanding the oppression of Black girls and women within the global context
The Historical Perspectives of Stereotypes on African-American Males
Women's criminality, criminal women, criminalized women? Questions in and for a feminist perspective
Multidimensional Aspects of Social Networks
Black Mothers, Bad Mothers
Intersectionality and research in psychology
Racial Disproportionality and Disparities in the Child Welfare System
Double Jeopardy
Getting Eyes in the Home
Understanding the expansion of social control and helping professionals as unwilling agents of the state
Deservingness, Deadbeat Dads, and Responsible Fatherhood
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |