ACLU magazine

In 2017, the creators of the Allegheny Family Screening Tool (AFST) published a report describing the development process for a predictive tool used to inform responses to calls to Allegheny County, Pennsylvania’s child welfare agency about alleged child neglect.

Anjana Samant, Noam Shemtov, Kath Xu, Sophie Beiers, Marissa Gerchick, Ana Gutierrez, Aaron Horowitz, Tobi Jegede, Tarak Shah (2023). “The Devil is in the Details: Interrogating Values Embedded in the Allegheny Family Screening Tool.” ACLU. Summer 2023. © 2023 American Civil Liberties Union

Logic(s)

Each year, more than three million US children are subjected to investigations by state and local child welfare agencies, the majority of which are closed without a finding of maltreatment. Most investigations result from allegations of “neglect,” a broad category, distinct from physical or sexual abuse, expansive enough to justify government oversight of families experiencing poverty or those whose parenting practices do not constitute abuse, but are unfamiliar or frowned upon by caseworkers or agencies. Families describe these investigations as frightening, invasive, stigmatizing, and rife with bias. Given the intrusive nature of child welfare interventions and the questionable benefit to impacted families and children, as detailed below, the terms “family regulation system” or “family policing system” are increasingly used to replace a moniker that encourages a view of the system as a neutral and benevolent protector.

Anjana Samant, Noam Shemtov, Kath Xu, Sophie Beiers, Marissa Gerchick, Ana Gutierrez, Aaron Horowitz, Tobi Jegede, Tarak Shah (2023). “The Allegheny Family Screening Tool’s Overestimation of Utility and Risk.” Logic(s). 13 December, 2023. Issue 20.

The Colombian Truth Commission (CEV), the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), and the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) have worked together to integrate data and calculate statistical estimates of the number of victims of the armed conflict, including homicides, forced disappearances, kidnapping, and the recruitment of child soldiers. Data are available through National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), the Truth Commission, and GitHub.