NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending August 4, 2020

● The book is called Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms. One of these prisons is the child welfare system.  That part of this important book is excerpted by In These Times.

 ● An aunt writes in Rise about what the racism that permeates child welfare has done to three generations of her family.

 ●Elizabeth Brico writes in Rewire News about still another way child welfare agencies destroy families – including her own: By making parents homeless. She writes:

 Agency-induced homelessness is a common phenomenon known among parent attorneys and advocates as a weapon wielded by caseworkers and judges, who can impose it upon parents at will.

 ● I discussed the harm inflicted on children by the bad child welfare system in Oregon on Jefferson Public Radio …

 ●…and I have an op-ed column in the Arizona Republic about the even worse system in Arizona. (You know, the one where some caseworkers wore T-shirts emblazoned with the words “professional kidnapper.”)

 ● In one case where those sorts of words were backed up by action, a father finally got his child back. As the Republic reports:

 What's the cost of losing out on the first five years of your child's life?

 For one father, it's $25 million. Donald Williams Jr. is suing the state in federal court after his parental rights were cut off, then restored, in a child-welfare case that lasted nearly five years and stretched over two states.