Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care

by Claudia Rowe Narrated by Morgan Hallett

Overview

Told through the stories of six former foster youth, a jolting exploration of a broken system from an award-winning journalist

By the time Maryanne was 16 years old, she had been arrested for murder. In and out of foster and adoptive homes since age 10, she'd run away, been trafficked and assaulted, and finally pointed a gun at the latest man to take her into his car. She pulled the trigger and fled. But with no family to turn to and few reliable friends, it didn't take long for the police to catch up with her.

In court, the defense blamed neither traffickers, nor Maryanne, but Washington state itself-or rather, its foster care system, which parents thousands of children every year. The courts didn't listen to that argument, but award-winning journalist Claudia Rowe did. Washington state isn't alone, of course. Each year, hundreds of thousands of children grow up in America's $30 billion foster care system, only to leave and enter its prisons, where a quarter of all inmates are former foster youth.

Weaving Maryanne's story with those of five other foster kids across the country-including an 18-year-old sleeping on the New York City subways; a gangbanger-turned graduate student; and a foster child who is now a policy advisor to the White House-Rowe paints a visceral survival narrative showing exactly where, when, and how the system channels children into locked cells. Balanced with accounts from psychologists, advocates, judges, and foster parents, Wards of the State paves a road to reform by pulling back the curtain on our country's longstanding foster care-to-prison pipeline and the searing realities faced by kids who may be sitting in classrooms next to your own children.

“An eloquent and compelling call for change."-Booklist

Editorial Reviews

Larissa Macfarquhar

"When foster kids get in trouble with the law, why do we hold them responsible but not the state that raised them? In this brilliant, moving, and enraging book, Claudia Rowe calls child welfare to account for the homelessness and prison time that are often the next, and sometimes final, step for foster kids who age out of the system. If you wonder why prisons and shelters are full, this story is a large part of the answer."

Booklist

An eloquent and compelling call for change."

author of A Place Called Home David Ambroz

"In Wards of the State, Rowe achieves something truly remarkable—she educates and captivates in equal measure. Through vivid storytelling intertwined with incisive policy analysis, she exposes foster care as the overlooked battlefield of our war on poverty, its systemic failures often dismissed as background noise. With compassion and unflinching prose, Rowe brings to life a system less designed than inherited by happenstance, offering readers an unvarnished view into the lives shaped by its dysfunction. Refusing to excuse the system’s flaws, she invites us to witness the forces behind outcomes that too often seem tragically inevitable. Written with the pace and tension of a gripping crime drama, Wards of the State keeps readers riveted, wondering at every turn: What happens next?"

Publishers Weekly

A powerful indictment of a child welfare system seemingly designed to “pump out” adults “ill-equipped” to flourish.

coauthor of Rikers: An Oral History Graham Rayman

"Claudia Rowe's Wards of the State takes the reader on a wrenching yet somehow uplifting journey through the failed landscape of the government's foster care system––wrenching in the mountain of shattered lives she describes, uplifting in the victories of those who battled through it. A moving work of first-rate journalism."

Seattle Times

An immersive, devastating look at foster children’s lives and a systemic pipeline to homelessness and prison.

author of The Scientist and the Serial Killer: Lise Olsen

"Investigative reporter Claudia Rowe's important new book provides a shocking view of the void into which we cast foster children in America. These powerful portraits and dramatic scenes of the lives of foster children she has come to know reverberate with outrage, pain, and fear that readers will also feel. And yet these riveting tales, artfully woven together, provide intense, invaluable, and surprisingly hopeful insights on how to fig this broken system."

From the Publisher

"In Wards of the State, Rowe achieves something truly remarkable—she educates and captivates in equal measure. Through vivid storytelling intertwined with incisive policy analysis, she exposes foster care as the overlooked battlefield of our war on poverty, its systemic failures often dismissed as background noise. With compassion and unflinching prose, Rowe brings to life a system less designed than inherited by happenstance, offering readers an unvarnished view into the lives shaped by its dysfunction. Refusing to excuse the system’s flaws, she invites us to witness the forces behind outcomes that too often seem tragically inevitable. Written with the pace and tension of a gripping crime drama, Wards of the State keeps readers riveted, wondering at every turn: What happens next?"—David Ambroz, author of A Place Called Home

“An eloquent and compelling call for change."—Booklist

A powerful indictment of a child welfare system seemingly designed to “pump out” adults “ill-equipped” to flourish.—Publishers Weekly

"When foster kids get in trouble with the law, why do we hold them responsible but not the state that raised them? In this brilliant, moving, and enraging book, Claudia Rowe calls child welfare to account for the homelessness and prison time that are often the next, and sometimes final, step for foster kids who age out of the system. If you wonder why prisons and shelters are full, this story is a large part of the answer."—Larissa Macfarquhar, author Strangers Drowning: Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge t

“An immersive, devastating look at foster children’s lives and a systemic pipeline to homelessness and prison.”—Seattle Times

"Claudia Rowe's Wards of the State takes the reader on a wrenching yet somehow uplifting journey through the failed landscape of the government's foster care system––wrenching in the mountain of shattered lives she describes, uplifting in the victories of those who battled through it. A moving work of first-rate journalism."—Graham Rayman, coauthor of Rikers: An Oral History

"Investigative reporter Claudia Rowe's important new book provides a shocking view of the void into which we cast foster children in America. These powerful portraits and dramatic scenes of the lives of foster children she has come to know reverberate with outrage, pain, and fear that readers will also feel. And yet these riveting tales, artfully woven together, provide intense, invaluable, and surprisingly hopeful insights on how to fig this broken system."—Lise Olsen, author of The Scientist and the Serial Killer: The Search for Houston's Lost Boys

author of A Place Called Home - David Ambroz

"In Wards of the State, Rowe achieves something truly remarkable—she educates and captivates in equal measure. Through vivid storytelling intertwined with incisive policy analysis, she exposes foster care as the overlooked battlefield of our war on poverty, its systemic failures often dismissed as background noise. With compassion and unflinching prose, Rowe brings to life a system less designed than inherited by happenstance, offering readers an unvarnished view into the lives shaped by its dysfunction. Refusing to excuse the system’s flaws, she invites us to witness the forces behind outcomes that too often seem tragically inevitable. Written with the pace and tension of a gripping crime drama, Wards of the State keeps readers riveted, wondering at every turn: What happens next?"

Product Details

BN ID:	2940193580287
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	05/20/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos