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• A review of social work's relationships with youth serving carceral systems in the United States. • The racialized origins of child welfare, juvenile justice, and school policing. • An examination of social work's professional values alongside these carceral practices. • Critical questions and guidance for the future of the profession. This paper traces social work's historical and current relationships with three major child and youth serving carceral systems in the United States—the child welfare system, the juvenile justice system, and school policing. In each section, we examine the racialized origins of these systems and the current practices that perpetuate racial harm, particularly for Black children, youth and families. Given this knowledge, we consider if social work's stated professional values to oppose racism, injustice, and oppression can exist alongside the carceral practices that these systems perpetuate. The article concludes with critical questions and guidance for the future of the profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite some reductions in recent years, African American children in the United States continue to be disproportionately placed into out-of-home care. This paper describes a secondary analysis of data collected by Minnesota's African American Disparities Committee to identify whether factors in the casework process were contributing to Minnesota's extreme rates of disproportionality. The study, first described in a 2005 Minnesota Department of Human Services report, identified over 200 non-Hispanic, non-immigrant, white and African American child neglect cases substantiated in 2001 in four counties. Cases were then followed until case closure or for at least 18 months following the time of report to detail the casework process. This analysis used recursive partitioning to more accurately identify primary factors and potential interactions related to worker decision-making. African American and white children were matched by type of neglect, gender, age group, and county using administrative data. After rigorous data cleaning, 81 matched pairs were identified from a final sample of 180 cases. The progress of the children through the system was evaluated for potential race-based differences in the decision to refer a child for ongoing placement. Number of children, age, history of maltreatment, and report source were associated with placement decisions. Logistical regression follow-ups did not identify race-based interaction effects on placement decisions. However, African American cases statistically differed from white counterparts on presence of biological father and number of children in the household, identity of the perpetrator, parental and household risk factors, and whether an informal placement was arranged by police, some of which were associated with placement. Results are informed by a more detailed, qualitative follow-up analysis in a separate article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Children reside in households with hardship rates two to four times higher than seniors. • The majority of children in households with hardship are above the poverty line, a third are above 200% of the poverty line. • There are strong racial disparities in the risk of hardship. The material well-being of children has profound implications for a variety of social and health outcomes. This paper provides estimates of the prevalence and intensity of material hardship among children by various demographic groups and reveals stark disparities by race and educational attainment. According to a pooled sample of the nationally-representative Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) 36.5% of children lived in households reporting at least one form of material hardship, such as food insecurity, inability to pay essential household bills, inability to access medical care due to cost, or substandard and overcrowded housing. This is well above the proportion considered to be below the income poverty line (18.4%). Children were more likely to live in households experiencing material hardship than seniors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]