Conceptualizing an Anti-Mother Juvenile Delinquency Court
30 Pages Posted: 8 Jun 2023
Date Written: June 8, 2023
Abstract
This Article makes three contributions to the literature on the harms to children and their families that flow from involvement in the juvenile delinquency court. It argues, first, that poor mothers of color—especially those raising children without cohabitating partners—are uniquely vulnerable among parents to both seeing their children involved, and then ensnared, in the delinquency system and suffering harm from that experience. Second, it offers the contours of a theoretical framework for understanding the persistence of counterproductive and illogical treatment. Policymakers often view the vulnerability of poor mothers of color in other systems ostensibly designed for care—most notably the provision of income supports and the so-called child welfare system—as resulting from personal failings rather than systemic racism and sexism. Consequently, women in these contexts may be stigmatized and even criminalized. This Article posits that sex and race stereotyping and bias similarly help explain the commonplace and unnecessary diminution of parental dignity in the delinquency system. This conceptualization points toward prescriptions for reform, the Article’s third contribution. The Article argues that policymakers should move away from a system of prosecution and surveillance of young people and their families as the primary social response to alleged misconduct and invest in nonjudicial, noncarceral systems, such as those that exist for wealthy white children. In the meantime, they should work to change laws, practices, and discourse that diminish the rights and dignity of parents.
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