Sunday, Jul 20, 2008
The drug war has stamped an entire class of parents as permanently unfit.
Oct 25, 2000 | Elizabeth Harris still isn't sure why she did it.
She had filled her cart with $80 worth of groceries for herself and her 4-year-old son, and was standing in line waiting to pay for them. On impulse, she picked up a Bic lighter and slipped it into her pocket. In a lifetime that had already given her plenty to regret, Harris would come to regret this action more than any she had ever taken. It would trigger a chain of events that, three years later, has left her unlikely ever to see her child again.
It's worth mentioning that Harris, 39, is not simply a shoplifter; she is also a drug offender, with a lengthy history of using and selling methamphetamine. It's a history she says drew to a close within the last few years when, in fits and starts, she managed to get herself into a rehab program, secure permanent housing, stop using drugs and stabilize her life.
But Harris didn't do these things quickly or consistently enough; didn't do them on the timetable handed to her by the court that claimed jurisdiction over her son in the wake of her shoplifting arrest. As a result, like a growing number of women caught in the crushing nexus of the criminal justice and child welfare systems, she has seen her parental rights permanently terminated and her child placed for adoption.
In an election season that finds both major candidates throwing themselves at the feet of the sacrosanct "middle-class family," both have publicly ignored an aspect of national policy -- the ongoing drug war -- that has permanently destroyed thousands of families that don't fit the campaign ideal. This crusade, which escalated under the current administration, is unlikely to reverse course under the next, whoever wins the election. In fact, the drug war is succeeding where the culture wars of previous election cycles failed, in writing legions of "undesirable" American families out of existence entirely.
These families are dissolving under the pressure brought by a combination of laws and policies that can truly be called bipartisan achievements: a new emphasis in child welfare law on adoption and speedy termination of parental rights (a favorite policy of President Clinton's which George W. Bush has parroted so enthusiastically); mandatory sentences for drug offenders (a legacy of the Reagan/Bush Sr. years that the Clinton administration has made no effort to reverse); welfare reform (trumpeted by Al Gore in the first presidential debate as a heartwarming bipartisan success story); and a shift in enforcement of so-called "deadbeat dad" child support laws to target single, incarcerated mothers. The net result is that women who serve time on even relatively minor charges may find that the penalty for their crime includes forfeiture of their motherhood.
This loss is especially devastating for women struggling with drug involvement, say researchers and social workers, because when they lose the role of mother, they lose one of the most powerful motivations for recovery. For these women's children, who have a hard time understanding that their mothers have disappeared not by choice but by decree of the court, the legal termination of their relationships with their mothers is often experienced as profound, and confusing, abandonment.
The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), passed in 1997, has hit prisoners and ex-offenders particularly hard. ASFA mandates that the states begin proceedings to terminate parental rights once a child has been in foster care for 15 out of the past 22 months -- six months if the child is younger than 3 years old. The law also promises bonuses of up to $6,000 for each adoption over pre-ASFA levels.
Championed by Hillary Clinton and popular with child welfare advocates, ASFA was written to address the needs of children who spend years or decades bouncing from one foster home to another while their parents blow chance after chance to get their lives together. But, as with any pendulum swing, ASFA has had some extreme consequences, sweeping many parents into its net before they have had a fair shot at preserving family bonds.
Both adoptions and terminations of parental rights are rapidly increasing across the country. There were 46,000 children adopted out of foster care in 1999, up from 28,000 in 1996; and the number of additional children whose parents' rights had been terminated and who were "waiting for adoption" grew from 37,000 in March of 1998 to 46,000 in September of 1999.
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