The Truth About Child Abuse and Poverty

http://www.alternet.org/education/truth-about-child-abuse-and-poverty




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Racial prejudices, biases and assumptions contribute to the fact that 97 percent of children in New York City foster care are children of color. According to a leading researcher in the field, Dorothy Roberts, author of "Shattered Bonds," "[t]he fact that the system supposedly designed to protect the children remains one of the most segregated institutions in the country should arouse suspicion." This is most clearly demonstrated by the documented decisions that medical professionals make when they encounter abuse and neglect in families of color. The data in the books "To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care" (Cris Beam) and Roberts's "Shattered Bonds" illustrates this point:

Black women have been reported to health authorities at delivery 10 times more often than white women, even though studies show that drug use is relatively equal, for instance, between blacks and whites (9.5 percent and 8.2 percent respectively), and that more pregnant white women use drugs than pregnant black women (113,000 versus 75,000).

Doctors failed to detect abusive head trauma twice as often in white as compared to minority children.

Even reviewing neutral e-rays for fractures, hospitalized minority toddlers were five times more likely to be evaluated for child abuse, and three times more likely to be reported for child abuse, than white children.


Any child protective attorney can attest to the truth of this statement. New York City Family Courts, which handle child protective cases, are courts of the poor where white families are a significant minority. White families are given the benefit of the doubt when allegations of abuse and neglect arise, and, as noted in the statistics, they simply do not suffer the same scrutiny by mandated reporters. In addition, they have less contact with the mandated reporters at schools, mental health facilities, welfare offices and hospitals, resulting in fewer calls to the Administration for Children’s Services. Factors such as homelessness, unemployment and welfare enrollment bring poor families into greater contact with more bureaucracies and caseworkers. In addition, living in a poor neighborhood with drug use and street crime where there is greater police presence increases a family’s visibility to police scrutiny.