HOW TO END FAMILY POLICING
From Outrage to Action
Edited by Erin Miles Cloud, Erica R. Meiners, Shannon Perez-Darby, and C. Hope Tolliver
Haymarket Books (21 September 2025)
Trade paper • ISBN-13: 9798888904565 • US $19.95 • 5 in x 8 in • 272 pgs.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
From leading abolitionist organizers, a much-needed intervention arguing that the systems that purport to protect children make our communities less safe for them.
Based on decades of shared organizing, study, and lived experience, the contributors to How to End Family Policing argue that the child welfare system cannot build genuine safety. Rather than the misleading language of “child welfare” and “child protective services,” scholars and activists use the term “family policing” to name the fact that these institutions and practices are neither neutral nor benign.
Black, Indigenous, and Latinx parents do not mistreat their children at higher rates than white parents. Yet 53 percent of all Black children in the United States will experience a child protective services investigation before the age of eighteen.
Offering first-person testimony, alternatives to family policing, and definitions of key concepts, this book is an urgent call to build flourishing communities.
With contributions from Corey B. Best, Annie Chambers, Noran Elzarka, Brianna Harvey, Shira Hassan, Shawn Koyano, jaboa lake, Elizabeth Ling, Leah Plasse, Margaret Prescod, zara raven, Ignacio G. Hutía Xeiti Rivera, Dorothy Roberts, Arneta Roger, Lisa Sangoi, jasmine Sankofa, Kylee Sunderlin, Jasmine Wali, E. Zimiles, and the editors.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Erin Miles Cloud is a mama, civil rights attorney, cofounder of Movement for Family Power, and a former family defense public defender.
Erica R. Meiners is a writer, organizer, and educator in Chicago. They are the coauthor of Abolition. Feminism. Now. and The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm and Ending State Violence.
Shannon Perez-Darby is a queer, mixed-race Latina, founding member of the Accountable Communities Consortium, and a core member of the Mandatory Reporting Is Not Neutral project.
C. Hope Tolliver is a Black poet, abolitionist, parent, and Chicago native who has been organizing for more than two decades.
RIGHTS INFORMATION:
Please contact subagents for the following languages and territories:
| Language/Territory | Subagent |
|---|---|
| China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam | Big Apple Agency |
| Dutch | Sebes & Bisseling Literary Agency |
| English outside North America | David Grossman Literary Agency |
| French | Deborah Druba Agency |
| German | Paul & Peter Fritz AG Literatur Agentur |
| Greek | Read n' Right Agency |
| Hebrew | The Deborah Harris Agency |
| Italian | Berla & Griffini Rights Agency |
| Japanese | The English Agency (Japan) Ltd |
| Korean | BC Agency, or Korea Copyright Center |
| Portuguese | RIFF Agency |
| Russia/Baltics/Eastern Europe | Prava I Prevodi |
| Scandinavia | Sebes & Bisseling Literary Agency |
| Spanish in Latin America | MB Agencia Literaria |
| Spanish in Spain | MB Agencia Literaria |
| Turkish | Anatolialit Agency |
For all other languages/territories, please contact Roam Agency.