From slavery to the present day, the United States has used institutions and policies to control reproduction — especially in Black and poor communities.

In the era of chattel slavery, the state used institutionalized violence and abuse as a tool. Today, public institutions and social services have been established by the state to police and surveil the behavior of poor communities and parents, perpetuating the reproductive violence and oppression that began centuries ago.

Alan J. Dettlaff is a professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, where he also served as Dean from 2015 to 2022. Alan is the author of Confronting the Racist Legacy of the American Child Welfare System: The Case for Abolition, published by Oxford University Press in 2023. He is also co-founding editor of Abolitionist Perspectives in Social Work, a peer-reviewed scholarly journal dedicated to developing and disseminating an abolitionist praxis in social work. In 2020, he helped to create and launch the upEND movement, a collaborative effort dedicated to abolishing the family policing system and building alternatives that focus on healing and liberation.