PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Postgraduate Fellow Sophia Ramirez interviews legal scholar, sociologist, and social justice advocate Dorothy E. Roberts about her new book, Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World, which peels back the benevolent façade of the child welfare system, revealing the cruel and oppressive structures within. Roberts calls for the abolition of the system, advocating for community-based responses. Ramirez and Roberts discuss the child welfare system’s racist origins, carceral logic, and the destruction it deals to Black families and minority communities.