Review of “Inju$tice, Inc.: How America’s Justice System Commodifies Children and the Poor,” by Daniel L. Hatcher. Oakland: University of California Press, 2023. Paper, 163 pages.
On the subject of poor families, neighborhoods threatened by absent parents, cities strained by lack of working adults, and the challenge of caring for young people who are not being parented consistently by the adults who should be guiding them, this is another book telling of the abuse of the poor. It is also a book about abuse of Black Americans, whose children are the greatest group in the juvenile justice system and in the foster care programs.
This book is an incredible expose’ of the corrupt and greedy use of the courts to make money off poor people…
the very individuals who do not have extra money to throw away. At issue here is foster children, their birth parents not supporting/able to support them, and the huge amount of money involved.
The author does a good job of exposing the ways in which juvenile courts use their power—and access more power—through legislation and contracts meant to make the courts wealthy. All of this while poor families struggle to pay fines, court costs, and the very support of the children that is connected to the very root of the problem.
The root of the problem is poverty. Poverty is the main challenge in taking care of youth. Poverty is what hinders parents’ ability to make their support payments, pay other costs, and afford legal representation to get custody of their children back.
The corruption and abuse of the families takes place in many states. Hatcher focuses on Ohio and other states in the Midwest where the courts get away with murder, and in addition to charging the fees and payments parents cannot make, the courts are in the business of jailing children—and the poor in general.
Courts force poor fathers to make bad choices. Courts take away fathers’ drivers licenses and make it impossible to pay fines and fees. They make it impossible for the fathers to live with their families. If they do so, the mother loses income from various relief programs. At the very core of the issues—keeping families together and finding a united and solid way to raise the children in question—the courts force the parents apart and by default provide less parenting support to the children. Courts make money and pay salaries of court employees—many of them not lawyers and not judges—while the families are forced apart.
At the heart of the corruption and abuse is race. The author speaks in the last chapter of the courts “monetizing youth of color.” By far the largest group under attack are Black families…
They face the greatest abuse—actually still legal—at the hands of the juvenile courts. Helping supervise the children and the jails they often wind up inhabiting are private companies… making millions from the foster care business.
While the above might sound like an exposé of some backwards courts and wayward judges on the take in the remote past, it is not.
This corruption and abuse has been taking place very recently, and this book was published this year. In 2023, all of this terrible destruction of families—and damning futures for children—is going on in many states.
The author says he is disheartened when he looks at the current “numbers of children and impoverished adults processed by our justice systems into byzantine contractual revenue schemes, numbers reflecting how the factory-like operations are fueled by over four hundred years of racial and economic inequality…” he realizes that apathy is not a reasonable option. He is forced to tell the world about this terrible practice—namely using foster children as a way for courts, companies, and individuals to make a great deal of money (p. 164).
Not writing the book “with hopelessness” he calls on all parties to consider two very important keys to the solutions of how to fix this corruption: mission and ethics. If people follow those two aspects of the equation, the author assures us we can “realign our justice systems toward the ideals of justice” though different from state to state, county to county, and justice official to justice official.
He says also that the most difficult thing about this realignment will be “honest self-reflection” for all parties involved to fix the problems (p. 164).
How to fix the above problems is a complicated challenge that needs to be met by many people coming to the table to help. The above issues are going to take time, resources, and of course commitment on the part of our elected officials. Giving input and feedback to those elected officials is the job of the people writing, and reading, books like the one above.
Social justice comes from participation on the part of people who care.