Abolishing the American Family Policing System as Transitional and Racial Justice

This chapter argues that the United States Family Policing System (FPS)—a network of laws and policies regulating and surveilling families—constitutes a site of racial subordination and human rights violations disproportionately affecting Black families. This chapter advocates for an expansive view of transitional justice as a praxis capable of addressing systemic racial subordination and allowing for transitions within democracies. Tracing the FPS from its origins of chattel slavery, southern ‘redemption’ and ‘resistance,’ and Jim Crow, this chapter situates familial separation as a persistent instrument of policies designed to harm the very families the FPS now purports to help. This chapter demonstrates that the removal of Black children by the FPS meets the threshold for gross human rights violations under international law. Drawing on TJ's pillars—truth-telling, reparations, and guarantees of non-recurrence—it contends that abolition of the FPS and reimagination of child welfare is the only viable mechanism for accountability, redress, and deterrence for Black families.