The American child welfare system has a long history of injustice. Until recently, this was mainly experienced by low-income Black families, who are routinely surveilled by caseworkers. This brings the threat of investigation, arrest, and having their children taken away, placed in foster care, and frequently adopted. This is often referred to as Jane Crow. Some researchers have likened the child welfare system to professional kidnapping and have highlighted the prevalence of children aging-out of foster care only to become homeless.

The relationship between political parties and democracy is complex. Liberal thought at first didn’t even include political parties in the theory of democracy. In practice, however, factions and then parties gradually emerged. Since World War II, parties have often been seen as essential to representative democracy. Nevertheless, their role has evolved over time. During the last decade, undemocratic trends have been flourishing worldwide, raising questions about how political parties may have contributed. Some factors have been studied, but the research hasn’t been substantial or systematic.

Filicide, where a parent or guardian kills a child, is a heinous crime. Thea Brown, Danielle Tyson and Paula Fernandez Arias from the Monash Deakin Filicide Research Hub have been studying filicide for years, to uncover common factors for future prevention initiatives.

Everyone deserves to have satisfying relationships, romantic or otherwise. Communication skills are hugely important in fostering affection and connection within such relationships. However, some couples and families may have more trouble communicating than others. For ‘neurodiverse’ relationships consisting of neurotypical and autistic people, communication can be particularly difficult. Autism involves differences in social interaction and communication. However, the extent to which these differences affect adults in neurodiverse relationships is largely unknown, as the majority of autism research focuses on children. To address this, Dr Bronwyn Maree Wilson of Edith Cowan University and colleagues have conducted a study into the communication issues experienced by neurodiverse couples and families.

Whether policymaking can develop solutions for the inevitable problems that capitalism creates has long been a concern of political economists. One of these issues is rising inequality across the USA and other countries. Inequality is a significant risk for political stability, so it is vital to understand how democratic societies respond to it. Progressive taxation policies, which tax the rich at higher rates, can help to equalize incomes and wealth. Despite this, over the last four decades while inequality has increased, successive US governments have introduced falling tax rates for top earners. Why is this?

Hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants have been apprehended every year in recent years while trying to enter the US from Central American countries, including Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Mysteriously, however, the percentage of apprehended migrants from Mexico has dropped substantially. In 2004, US border patrol apprehended 1.1 million Mexicans, accounting for 9 out of 10 undocumented migrants that year. This number dropped to a low of 265 thousand in 2017 and then rose, to between 700 and 800 thousand in the early 2020s. So, what caused the number of undocumented Mexican migrants to plummet over time? Professor Jorge Dominguez recently set out to solve this mystery.