Perseus Academic: Shattered Bonds by Dorothy Roberts

Shattered Bonds is a stirring account of a worsening American social crisis—the disproportionate representation of black children in the U.S. foster care system and its effects on black communities and the country as a whole. Tying the origins and impact of this disparity to racial injustice, Dorothy Roberts contends that child-welfare policy reflects a political choice to address startling rates of black child poverty by punishing parents instead of tackling poverty's societal roots. Using conversations with mothers battling the Chicago child-welfare system for custody of their children, along with national data, Roberts levels a powerful indictment of racial disparities in foster care and tells a moving story of the women and children who earn our respect in their fight to keep their families intact.

Dorothy Roberts is a professor at Northwestern University School of Law and a fellow at the university's Institute for Policy Research. She lives with her family in Evanston, Illinois.