Presented at the 2019 APSAC Colloquium in Salt Lake City.

Presented at the 2019 APSAC Colloquium in Salt Lake City.

Friday morning plenary at the 25th Anniversary Colloquium. Ineffective, Costly, and Harmful: Juvenile Sex Offender Registration Needs to Go - Elizabeth Letourneau, PhD

In the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and others, there have been many calls to “defund the police” and abolish the child welfare system, including the courts, as part of a strategy to eliminate longstanding racial disparities. Meanwhile, Black children continue to suffer disproportionately higher rates of maltreatment and fatalities than their peers as some professionals “screen out” calls of suspected abuse, excuse physical punishment as intrinsic to Black parenting culture, and opponents continue to push back against prevention efforts such as “No Hit Zones,” public health education on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES), and campaigns to eliminate corporal punishment in homes and schools. Those advocating on behalf of maltreated children often ask, “How do we foster resilience in youth so they can rebound from trauma and grow in the face of adversity?” But while resilience, grit, and the ability to bounce back are understandably seductive, it is a misguided approach to child abuse prevention. The real resilience must come from advocates and professionals who need to shift the responsibility off child victims and work to ensure that holistic, culturally responsive systems and protective factors are in place for families and communities so that children do not have to shoulder the burden of adapting to intergenerational traumas.