The American University journal of gender, social policy & the law 

About: The American University journal of gender, social policy & the law is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Human rights & Domestic violence. It has an ISSN identifier of 1557-3753. Over the lifetime, 407 publications have been published receiving 2264 citations.

Racism and Patriarchy in the Meaning of Motherhood

Abstract: Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the African American Studies Commons, Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Law and Gender Commons, Law and Society Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, United States History Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons

The Overrepresentation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Questioning, Gender Nonconforming and Transgender Youth Within the Child Welfare to Juvenile Justice Crossover Population

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTIONA new national study shows that lesbian, gay, bisexual, questioning, gender nonconforming, and transgender (LGBQ/GNCT) youth are overrepresented among youth in the juvenile justice system who have been involved in the child welfare system1 These findings essentially document that the percentage of LGBQ/GNCT youth involved in both the juvenile justice and child welfare systems is higher than the percentage of LGBQ/ GNCT youth in the general population.These youth are sometimes referred to as "dually-involved" or "crossover" youth. Generally, the term "dually-involved" refers to youth who are supervised in both the child welfare system and the juvenile justice system at the same time.2 The term "crossover" is a broader term that refers to youth who have been involved in the child welfare system prior to or concurrent with juvenile justice system involvement.3 The authors of this report surveyed and interviewed youth who were currently in the juvenile justice system and used two survey questions to identify child welfare involvement: "Have you ever been removed from your home because someone was hurting you?" and "Have you ever been placed in a group or foster home because someone was hurting you?" The second question was designed to identify when escalated child welfare action was taken as not all home removals result in a placement into a group or foster home. Since these questions capture two different child welfare system actions but cannot determine if youth have a current child welfare case, the broader term "crossover" youth is most appropriate.Additionally, the authors distinguish foster home or group home placement "because someone hurt them" from foster home or group home placement "because they got in trouble." This is an important distinction for youth in the juvenile justice system who can be sent to an out-of-home placement by the dependency (child welfare) or delinquency (juvenile justice) court. The same does not hold true for child welfare youth, unless they become juvenile justice involved. While both the juvenile justice and the child welfare systems have the agency to remove youth from their homes, the reasons differ. The juvenile justice system typically removes a young person from the home as part of their court sentence or because a youth's behavior is "escalating" and resulting in violations of probations. These reasons typically do not meet the threshold of a child welfare home removal, such as physical abuse or neglect. For this study, only child welfare removals were considered.This study surveyed youth in seven juvenile detention facilities. Results show that lesbian, gay, bisexual, questioning ("LGBQ") or gender nonconforming and transgender ("GNCT") youth in the juvenile justice system are at least three times more likely to have been removed from their home than straight and gender conforming youth and at least five times more likely to be placed in a group or foster home compared with straight and gender conforming youth.4II. DETAILED FINDINGS FROM YOUTH SURVEYSYouth in juvenile detention facilities were surveyed and Table 1 illustrates that child welfare involvement is not consistent across all sexual orientations. LGBQ youth are three times more likely to have been removed from their home than straight youth: only 11% percent of straight youth in the juvenile justice system had a history of being removed from their home by social workers compared to 30% of LGBQ youth.Table 1 shows even greater disparities when looking at child welfare system placement into group or foster homes (as opposed to juvenile justice placement). Only 3% of straight youth in the juvenile justice system had been previously placed in a group or foster home while 23% of LGBQ youth had. This means that LGBQ youth are more than seven times more likely to be placed in a group or foster home than straight youth.Aside from sexual orientation, the authors were interested to see whether different aspects of gender expression and identity shaped child welfare histories. …

Theories of Domestic Violence in the African Context

Abstract: By the mid-1990s, attention had begun to be paid in most African countries to the widespread problem of domestic violence. Studies about partner abuse and femicide-both informal, anecdotal studies and more formal surveys-appeared in Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa, for example. Much of the initial writing was intended simply to document the existence of such violence and thus to construct it as a social problem. At the same time, activist groups in a number of countries such as Ghana, Uganda, and Kenya began lobbying for the passage of domestic violence codes, although only South Africa and Mauritius have passed such statutes to date. Women's rights activists in several countries, notably Zimbabwe and South Africa, established organizations that counsel abused women, offer legal assistance, and in some instances provide domestic violence training to government personnel. In Ghana and South Africa, specialized units within the police force were set up to address domestic violence problems affecting women and children. Shelters for abused women have now been set up by non-governmental organizations (" NGOs") in those two countries, as well as in Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, and other places.

Cracking the Foundational Myths: Independence, Autonomy, and Self-Sufficiency

Abstract: Feminist legal theorists can legitimately complain that most mainstream work fails to take into account institutions of intimacy, such as the family. Discussions that focus on the market typically treat the family as separate, governed by an independent set of expectations and rules. When theoretical focus is turned to the nature of actions of the state, the family (if it is considered at all) is cast as a separate autonomous institutions. Theorists who focus on the individual seem to deny the family any potential relevance or theoretical significance.This reliance on the 'assumed family' distorts analysis and policy. In economic and other important public policy discussions, we focus on the appropriate relationship between the market and state, with the family relegated to the 'private' sphere. Discussions proceed as though the policies that are designed to affect these institutions in the public sphere have only few implications for the unexamined private family.This paper argues that we do not begin our lives in equal circumstances but in unequal contexts. In order to rethink how we might constitute a just system for handling dependency, our society must move beyond simplistic catch words and engage in a nationwide debate. Society’s winners and losers become so, in large part, because of benefits and privileges or disadvantages and burdens conferred by family position and unequal distribution of social and economic goods. The approach to a resolution to this type of inequality is not found in simplistic and hypocritical prescriptions, ideological placebos of independence, autonomy, and self-sufficiency.