Richard Gelles, Scholar of Family Violence, Is Dead at 73

Richard Gelles, a prominent sociologist, had been one of the nation’s foremost defenders of family preservation, the practice of reuniting biological parents with their children even if they had abused them.

But after studying the horrific deaths of many children at the hands of their parents, including a 15-month-old whose mother suffocated him to death, Dr. Gelles did an about-face.

He took his outrage to Washington in the mid-1990s and helped draft landmark legislation that said the safety of a child should supersede attempts to reunite a family. The new law made it easier for children who were languishing in foster care, because their biological parents still had custody, to be put up for adoption.

Dr. Gelles died on June 26 under hospice care at his home in Philadelphia. He was 73. His son David Gelles said the cause was brain cancer.