Deeming impoverished New York City parents dangerous and their children genetically inferior, Charles Loring Brace establishes the “Children’s Aid Society.” In the late 19th century, the Children’s Aid Society forced impoverished children onto “orphan trains,” where they are shipped into indentured servitude in the South and Midwest. While some children had been orphaned, many were forcefully torn from their families.

U.S. Congress established a federal agency to address the needs of children and youth, marking the federal government’s entrance into the social welfare arena.

The Social Security Act established federal funding for the care of homeless, dependent, and neglected children, but states had enormous leeway to exclude Black families from receiving benefits.

Using a so-called “morality clause,” allowing the expulsion of families from the welfare rolls if their homes were deemed “unsuitable,” 22,500 children in Louisiana are expelled from welfare rolls. 98% of them were Black.

The Flemming Rule prohibited states from applying morality clauses to deny aid. However, states l could still deem homes “unsuitable,” and if they did, they then had to “protect” the children—by placing them in the foster system. This resulted in a large increase of Black children in the foster system.

The federal government allowed cash assistance for families experiencing poverty to follow a child into the foster system, effectively incentivizing states to remove children from their homes for issues largely associated with poverty.

Dr. C. Henry Kempe published an article defining severe physical child abuse as a medical problem, rather than a societal problem. This prevalent article failed to address the ways that structural inequities contribute to child abuse.

The Children's Bureau publishes model statutes to help inform states’ initial mandated reporting requirements, which would legally require certain professionals to report “reasonable suspicion” of child abuse. These early mandated reporting initiatives focused primarily on physicians.

In his first State of the Union address, London B. Johnson announces the “war on poverty,” recognizing poverty as a societal failure, rather than an individual one. Reflecting this perspective, new laws passed to expand anti-poverty programs to support children and families. The “War on Poverty” initiatives received immense conservative backlash.

The “Moynihan Report” fueled rhetoric about supposed deviance in the Black family structure, tying it to growing anti-welfare rhetoric.

All states (except Hawaii, which later followed) enact laws mandating physicians to report suspected child abuse.

The Comprehensive Child Development Act, which aimed to provide federally subsidized child care, was vetoed by President Nixon.

32 states identify social workers as mandated reporters. Definitions of abuse are broadened to include emotional and nutritional abuse, as well as sexual abuse and exploitation.

Weary of the Nixon administration’s hostility towards anti-poverty measures, federal legislators designed CAPTA to avoid recognizing the links between child abuse and poverty and structural inequities.

In order to receive grants under CAPTA, states were required to establish a system of mandated reporting. States make significant, punitive changes to their child abuse and neglect laws to comply.

Between 1977 and 1978, national reports of child abuse increased from 110,265 to 191,739, reflecting a 75% increase.

In 1978, only 13.4% of these reports were revealed a finding of child abuse. Data shows racial disparities in reporting; Black families were subject to 19 percent of reports, but only 11% of the national population.

CAPTA is expanded in order to more broadly define child maltreatment and expands the list of professionals required to report.

The largest crime bill in the history of the US encouraged even more punitive laws, fueling the harmful use of criminalization, incarceration, and family separation as a response to structural inequities.

With the stated purpose of promoting “child safety and permanency,” ASFA establishes stricter timelines for terminating children’s rights to their parents (a more accurate term than termination of parental rights.) The rush to terminate these rights creates a generation of legal orphans, who “age out” of the system with no home at all. ASFA also falsely equated child safety with child removal, leading to a sharp increase in needless removals of children.

CAPTA is amended to require that any parent of a newborn born “affected” by an illegal substance must be turned in to the family police, after which, someone, - it’s not clear who - must draw up a so-called “plan of safe care.” Taking their cues from this CAPTA amendment, many states go further and deem a parent who gives birth to a substance “affected” newborn automatically guilty of neglect.

The Black Lives Matter movement gains prominence in the United States, drawing attention to police brutality and systemic racism.

This law further amended CAPTA to require “plans of safe care” for newborns affected by not only illegal, but also legal substances–including medication-assisted treatment. This deters more pregnant and parenting people from accessing prenatal care and puts more newborns at risk of needless separation.

The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade by police spark widespread protests against police violence and racial injustice.

Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old Black girl who was forced to live in a group home after her grandmother’s poverty was treated as neglect, was fatally shot by a police officer in Columbus, Ohio. This tragic incident illuminated the relationship between the family policing and criminal legal systems.