By Abigail Hean

The termination of parental rights refers to the permanent, legal severance of any rights, relationship, or privileges between a parent and child. In the age of mass incarceration in the United States, more and more parents are seeing their rights involuntarily terminated as a result of their incarceration, making it one of the gravest and yet simultaneously least-discussed collateral consequence that comes with a criminal conviction and sentence to imprisonment. For example, national data revealed that 32,000 incarcerated parents had their parental rights involuntarily terminated from 2006 to 2016, many of whom had no allegations of unfitness prior to incarceration. In fact, a parent who was incarcerated but had never been accused of child abuse or neglect was more likely to have their parental rights terminated than one who had physically or sexually abused their children.

Because of the undeniable racial and socioeconomic disparities that exist in our criminal justice system, the link between incarceration and termination of parental rights is especially concerning. On their face, child welfare laws purport to balance the interests of parents and children. However, these procedures fail to adequately protect incarcerated parents. The child welfare system disproportionately affects poor parents of color, threatening the long-term lives of their children and the stability of communities of color, while perpetuating racist and classist prejudices. To correct this problem, scholars have suggested both practical solutions and legal reforms, such as heightening the burden of proof and repealing federal legislation. However, rather than rewrite the laws, this article suggests that advocates work to reframe the idea of a child's best interests to more seriously consider the importance of family unity, especially for families of color and those of low socio-economic status.

Part I of this article will discuss the high rates of termination of parental rights among incarcerated parents and the role of race and poverty in these cases. Part II will review the laws which currently set incarcerated parents up for failure, including the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 and, using Wisconsin as a case study, the state statutes which are often used against incarcerated parents. Finally, Part III will examine the false dichotomy of family unity and the child's best interest, which has been created to perpetuate racism, classism, and paternalism in our legal system, despite evidence that family unity and a child's best interests are actually interrelated. This article will then recommend a few ways for advocates and judges to reframe the idea of the child's best interests to better preserve family unity.

 45 Children's Legal Rights Journal 1 (2024)

By The Human Rights Watch

The 61-page report reveals how prosecutorial discretion in New Jersey leads to children being tried as adults, resulting in harsh sentences and racial disparities.

Human Rights Watch, February 11, 2025, 61p.

By William A. Darity Jr., Raffi E. García, Lauren Russell & Jorge N. Zumaeta

This paper examines the financial health of racial-ethnic groups in Tulsa, Oklahoma, nearly a century after the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. We use data from the Tulsa National Asset Scorecard for Communities of Color (NASCC) survey to assess the financial health of two demographic groups that were historically the victims of racial violence - Native Americans and Black Americans. Specifically, we investigate financial outcomes a century after these groups made significant economic gains during the Tulsa oil boom in the early 1900 s and were subsequently victimized by racial violence. We find that Black households have statistically significantly less wealth and income than Whites in Tulsa. Our decomposition analysis shows household demographic differences between Blacks and Whites largely do not explain these wealth and income gaps, suggestive of historical discrimination. While in the case of the Native American tribes and Whites, the findings generally show no statistical significance. Compared to other NASCC-surveyed cities that did not experience destruction to the level of the Tulsa Massacre, the Black-White wealth and income gaps and the unexplained portion of the decompositions are the largest in Tulsa. Our results provisionally suggest that past exposure to racial violence can have long-term effects on the economic outcomes of the affected groups decades later.

Journal of Family and Economic Issues (2024) 45:256–275