By Imani Worthy, Tracy Serdjenian and Jeanette Vega Brown, RISE
This article was published in the Spring 2022 Issue of Family Integrity & Justice Quarterly, "Poverty Is Not Abuse...Poverty Is Not Neglect."
A family’s contact with the family polic
ing system often begins with a call to the child abuse and maltreatment “hotline” made by a mandated reporter. About two-thirds of reports to New York’s Statewide Central Register (SCR) are made by mandated reporters—“certain professionals mandated by New York State law to report suspected child abuse and neglect.” While some states require any person who suspects abuse or neglect to report, this article focuses on mandated reporting by professionals working in roles that are meant to support families and that states commonly designate as mandated reporters, including social workers, teachers/school personnel, child care providers and health/mental health care providers.
Mandated reporting is an extension of the racist, classist, ableist family policing system—making the system unavoidable in Black and brown low-income communities. Mandatory reporting laws provide a channel through which the surveillance and threat of the family policing system saturate intersecting systems where families should be able to access care, support, resources, and education (e.g., schools/daycares, hospitals, mental health services, shelters). Mandated reporting laws and practices especially harm Black, Latinx and Native families and communities.
Like the broader movement to defund policing, Rise calls for divesting from family policing and investing in families and communities. Mandated reporting is a symptom of and an ineffective response to families’ lack of access to resources and support. We need to address societal inequities rather than perpetuate them through family and community surveillance and punishment. This article provides an overview of Rise’s peer care model as an abolitionist approach to supporting safe, strong families without system involvement. It also outlines immediate steps to reduce hotline calls by mandated reporters.
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