Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The criminal justice and child protection systems are at times two significant government institutions in the lives of marginalized families. Despite some tangential discussions about their relationship (Edwards 2016, Phillips and Detlaff 2009, Berger et al 2016; Wildeman and Waldfogel 2014; Roberts 2012) the operation of this system involvement with regards to mothers (the primary caregiver) with child protection orders remains poorly understood.

In this paper, I build on scholarship surrounding the consequences of dual program enrollment and institutional intersectionality by exploring how these systems of governance work in the lives of the marginalized. This research asks, what are the consequences of this system overlap and how is the maze of child protection and judicial surveillance navigated by mothers at this intersection? This paper draws from interviews with 36 women from Minnesota who have or had open child welfare cases, with some of these women having justice involvement either themselves or through their romantic partners.

Methods:

Thirty-six in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with women who have or had open child protection cases in the last five years. Participants were recruited via posted fliers both physically in non-profits, such as legal aid offices or supervised-visitation offices and electronically on social media. All of the interviews took place in public places, from libraries to coffeeshops. These interviews probed women’s experiences with the child protection and the criminal justice system and their lives as parents. I used Nvivo, a qualitative software program, to thematically code transcribed interviews, field notes, and memos. Throughout data collection, I engaged in abductive analysis, moving between existing theoretical frameworks on race, gender, parenting, state intervention, and judicial surveillance and new data during and throughout fieldwork.

Findings:

The preliminary findings reveal that these mothers face continuous feedback loops of disadvantage (Haney 2018) that create individual, familial, and systemic consequences which is complicated by race and class. These feedback loops create feelings of shame, hopelessness, and surrender, fear and mistrust of the state (including police, social workers, and health care providers), and exacerbates material hardship.

Conclusions and Implications:

This paper analyzed the lives of marginalized mothers at the intersection of the child protection and criminal justice systems. My findings show that dual involvement in these institutions results in individual and collateral consequences. This analysis suggests that ways to address complex social problems begins from a bottom-up approach to policy research. Hearing directly from the population impacted by these policies, we can incorporate their voices in policy design and reform.