Are Black, Latino families targeted by ACS?

Legal Services NYC (LSNYC) has issued a new report that highlights a concerning trend: child abuse investigations by NYC's Administration for Children's Services (ACS) often target low-income Black and Latino women.

- By KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO Amsterdam News Staff

"Even ACS knows that they disproportionately investigate Latinos and Black folks," states Washcarina Martinez Alonzo, a Legal Aid attorney and co-author of the report, "The Far-Reaching Impact of ACS's Discriminatory Investigations on Women of Color and Survivors of Gender-Based Violence."

"For us," Martinez Alonzo said, "it was really about drawing a line between those investigations and poverty — the cycle of poverty."

The report depicts ACS as focusing on Black and Latino families that live in high-crime/low-income neighborhoods. Targeting is the best way to describe their actions, Martinez Alonzo told the AmNews, because "I think, as a person who's from the Bronx — I grew up between the Bronx and Harlem — it does feel like a target. As a native New Yorker and as an attorney who tries to use their words carefully, I would point to that target of like over-investigating or disproportionate involvement, all happening in the same neighborhood."

Residents in areas like Harlem, the Bronx, North Staten Island, East Brooklyn, and South Queens frequently have to deal with stop-and-frisk policies, witness domestic and gender-based violence, and see people suffering from substance abuse issues. These are incidents that bring large numbers of police officers to their neighborhoods. And a persistent police presence also attracts other state authorities who end up monitoring how residents function.