Barriers to Protection: Child Welfare and the Carceral State

Presenter Bios:

Abram J. Lyons is a PhD Social Welfare candidate in the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the impact of community-based anti-poverty interventions on child maltreatment and child welfare permanency outcomes for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) families. He is particularly interested in how these interventions can mitigate the long-lasting effects of colonization and systemic racism on Indigenous families. Mr. Lyons holds a Bachelor of Science in Philosophy and Psychology from the University of Idaho. After graduation, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine, which deepened his understanding of community-based social work. He later earned a Master of Social Work (MSW) from the University of Memphis. Soon after completing his MSW, he worked as an Indian Child Welfare case manager, where he witnessed firsthand the resilience of AI/AN families and their determination to preserve kinship structures and cultural traditions, despite the challenges imposed by systems of oppression. Before pursuing his PhD, Mr. Lyons spent three years as a research coordinator at Washington State University, working on a multi-site alcohol intervention project in AI/AN communities funded by the National Institutes of Health. Currently, he is focused on his dissertation, which examines the ongoing effects of settler colonialism and racism within the child welfare system, particularly its impact on Indigenous and Black children. His dissertation also explores how the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) plays a role in preserving Indigenous communities, using administrative data to assess the law’s effectiveness. A descendant of the Spokane Tribe, Mr. Lyons is committed to advancing the study of child safety and family preservation within AI/AN communities, with the goal of re-envisioning child welfare practices that better honor Indigenous cultural values and promote long-term well-being.

Stuti Shah is currently a doctoral candidate at Columbia Law School, and a Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellow for the year 2024-25.

Paper Abstracts:

Protecting Indigenous Children: A Critical Analysis of the Child Welfare System
By Abram J. Lyons

Indigenous children have disproportionately experienced family separation through the child welfare system since the early 20th century. State-sanctioned child removals occur within a history of Indigenous-US policy developed to erase Indigenous people (e.g., Indian Wars, Indian Removal Act, and Boarding Schools), physically and culturally, and acquire raw resources from Indigenous-occupied land to expand the nation-state’s political power. Although the child welfare system was not explicitly designed for this purpose, its outcomes reflect racial hierarchies within settler society that sustain erasure by reproducing Euro-American norms through foster care and adoption. This study engages with child welfare abolition projects that underscore the need for an Indigenous-centered intellectual historical analysis of the child welfare system and builds on conceptual work within the legal academic literature. It concludes that racist settler colonial policies persist within child welfare outcomes, and emphasizes the importance of Tribal Sovereignty in policy development.

Children Behind Bars: Deconstructing the Prison Nursery Model in India’s Carceral System
By Stuti Shah

This article examines the impact of carcerality on children who stay with their mothers in prison from a historical and socio-legal standpoint. Though this may appear to be a compassionate policy that empowers maternal choice, it ignores the fact that prisons are inherently harmful environments, and that this arrangement compromises children’s constitutional rights and well-being. Furthermore, the “choice” given to mothers to bring their children with them to prison is illusory, as it is deeply shaped by socio-economic disparities.The article also critically analyzes the prison nursery model in India, questioning whether it truly addresses the needs of incarcerated mothers and their children, or whether it perpetuates deeper systemic harms. It argues that reformist solutions, such as the prison nursery model, have been adapted by low-resource countries such as India without adequately considering their unique socio-economic contexts. It also highlights the current system’s reliance on NGOs for the implementation and operation of prison nurseries, which makes the model unsustainable and geographically inequitable.The article concludes by advocating for a shift away from reformation models toward abolitionist frameworks that prioritize the dignity and rights of both mothers and children. The existing prison nursery model fails to address the broader harms of incarceration and exacerbates deep-rooted structural inequalities. A radical rethinking of carceral systems is necessary to ensure that both mothers and children are freed from the cycles of harm and injustice perpetuated by the state.