Law Commons^™

Extraordinary (Circumstances) Injustice, Melissa Capalbo

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

The box . . . . It’s a small room, so you really don’t move
around a lot. You wake up, and there’s a toilet right next to
your head. You look out the window and you see birds fly-
ing, and that only leads your mind into wanting freedom
more. And since it’s a small room, it makes you think cra-
zy. . . .Right now, I’m five-foot-seven. I grew. I came here
when I was five feet tall.

This is Rikers Island. The 19-year-old boy who shared his story is certainly not alone. Thousands of youth from …

An Unintended Abolition: Family Regulation During The Covid-19 Crisis, Anna Arons

Faculty Publications

In a typical year, New York City’s vast family regulation system, fueled by an army of mandated reporters, investigates tens of thousands of reports of child neglect and abuse, policing almost exclusively poor Black and Latinx families even as the government provides those families extremely limited support. When the City shut down in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this system shrunk in almost every conceivable way as mandated reporters retreated, caseworkers adopted less intrusive investigatory tactics, and family courts constrained their operations. The number of reports fell, the number of cases filed in court fell, and the number of …