By Musa T. Bey

The Department of Human Services (DHS) in Philadelphia, entrusted with the care and protection of children, is entangled in a web of systemic failure, generational trauma, racialized surveillance, and bureaucratic violence. Far from being a system of safety or restoration, the DHS apparatus—and by extension the foster care system it commands—has become a modern extension of the carceral state: targeting poor Black families, separating children from their communities, and reinforcing structural inequality under the guise of “child welfare.”

Philadelphia, with the highest rate of child removal in the country, is ground zero for this humanitarian crisis. Families are torn apart not because of abuse in most cases, but because of poverty, housing insecurity, mental health stigma, or racial bias—conditions that the state deems “neglect,” but which are byproducts of the very racial capitalism the state refuses to challenge. Beneath the surface of protective language lies a brutal reality: the family policing system is not broken. It is functioning exactly as it was designed—to surveil, regulate, and discipline Black life.

I. Racialized Family Policing: The Myth of Neutral Intervention

DHS presents itself as an institution for “child protection,” but its mechanisms of surveillance disproportionately target Black and Brown families. In Philadelphia—a city that is nearly 43% Black—more than 65% of children in foster care are Black. These numbers are not statistical anomalies; they are indicators of institutional racism deeply embedded in every step of the family regulation process.

Mandatory reporters—teachers, nurses, and social workers—often call DHS not because of abuse, but due to subjective interpretations of neglect. A child showing up to school in unwashed clothes. A family living in a shelter. A mother struggling to afford food due to a stagnant minimum wage. These are framed not as cries for material support but as grounds for state intervention. Poverty is punished, not alleviated.

The result is a form of racialized family policing, where the logic of criminalization seeps into every aspect of “welfare” work. Social workers become de facto probation officers. Parents are monitored, coerced into compliance, and forced into programs that do little to address root causes. The omnipresence of DHS in poor communities means many parents live in fear—not of violence from their neighbors, but of the state snatching their children under false pretenses.

II. The Foster Care Industrial Complex: Profiting from Pain

Foster care is big business. Philadelphia allocates hundreds of millions of dollars annually to maintain and expand this system—not to restore families, but to warehouse children. Private agencies, contracted by DHS, profit from each placement. The longer a child remains in care, the more funding is secured. This commodification of childhood creates perverse incentives where reunification is delayed or denied, and the trauma of displacement becomes normalized.

Children often cycle through multiple placements, experiencing instability, abuse, and exploitation. Black children in particular face harsher outcomes—over-policing within group homes, lower rates of adoption, and increased likelihood of aging out of the system with no support. Many wind up in juvenile detention or homeless shelters within a few years of exiting foster care. This pipeline is not accidental; it is a structural feature of a system designed to disappear the children of the poor rather than invest in their futures.

Moreover, foster care is often a gateway to lifelong state control. Parents who wish to regain custody must comply with a litany of requirements—drug tests, parenting classes, home inspections, court appearances—without meaningful access to the resources they need. And when they fail to navigate this maze (often due to poverty, housing discrimination, or job insecurity), they are blamed, while the system continues to devour their children.

III. The Trauma of Family Separation

The trauma inflicted by family separation is not a footnote—it is the central reality of the foster care system. Studies consistently show that removing children from their homes—even in cases of alleged neglect—causes deep psychological harm, leading to anxiety, attachment disorders, and a higher risk of incarceration later in life. The very act of state removal, often conducted violently and without warning, replicates historical patterns of family destruction—from slavery’s auction blocks to Indigenous boarding schools.

In Philadelphia, these removals often take place under the cover of night, with police officers in tow. Children are yanked from their beds, placed with strangers, and told their parents are unfit. Parents are given court dates and case plans but no dignity, no compassion, and no acknowledgment of the structural violence they face. For Black families, this is a daily terror: the possibility that a knock on the door could end in lifelong separation.

This cycle of trauma is generational. Children raised in the system are more likely to have their own children taken. The state thus recreates the conditions of instability it claims to resolve, ensuring that poverty, surveillance, and state violence become inheritable traits.

IV. Resistance and the Call for Abolition

Despite the enormity of the crisis, resistance is rising. Across Philadelphia, community organizers, impacted parents, formerly fostered youth, and abolitionist scholars are challenging the legitimacy of DHS and demanding a new vision of care. Groups like the Philadelphia Family Unity Project, Village of Arts and Humanities, and national formations like UpEND Movement are building networks of mutual aid, parent advocacy, and legal support to push back against state violence and reimagine child safety outside of carceral systems.

The call is not merely for reform, but for abolition: dismantling the family regulation system as we know it and investing in community-led solutions. This means:

Ending child removal as a response to poverty Redirecting funds from foster care to housing, healthcare, and family support Creating networks of peer advocates and doula-style support for struggling parents Building trauma-informed care rooted in healing, not punishment Centering the voices of those most impacted by family policing

Real safety cannot be built through coercion or surveillance. It must be nurtured through solidarity, shared resources, and collective care.

Conclusion: Toward a World Without DHS

Philadelphia DHS and its foster care network stand as a monument to state failure—a system that inflicts more harm than the conditions it claims to correct. But this crisis is not inevitable. It is the result of choices: to criminalize poverty rather than end it, to surveil Black families rather than support them, to maintain bureaucracies rather than build communities.

Abolition is not a distant dream. It is the radical act of declaring that no child should be stolen to preserve the illusion of order. It is the recognition that love, not punishment, should be the organizing principle of a just society. And it is the commitment to rebuild from the ground up, rooted in the wisdom of those who have survived the system and who, despite everything, still believe in the possibility of freedom.

Let Philadelphia be the place where that future begins.