automating inequality by virginia eubanks

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately one in four children will experience some form of abuse or neglect in their lifetimes. Pat and I are competing to see if we can guess how a new predictive risk model the county is using to forecast child abuse and neglect, called the Allegheny Family Screening Tool (AFST), will score them. Both were referred to CYF by a mandated reporter, a professional who is legally required to report any suspicion that a child may be at risk of harm from their caregiver. We are focused on the records of two families: both are poor, white, and living in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We’re both studying the Key Information and Demographics System (KIDS), a blue screen filled with case notes, demographic data, and program statistics.

I’m sharing a desk and a tiny purple footstool with intake screener Pat Gordon. It’s late November 2016, and I’m squeezed into the far corner of a long row of gray cubicles in the call screening center for the Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth and Families (CYF) child neglect and abuse hotline.

Automating inequality by virginia eubanks