By the time Maryanne was sixteen, she'd been arrested for murder. Rowe met her in the context of that trial: she was used to writing about murder and didn't think there would be anything special here—but then she started to hear the arguments about foster care.

In "Wards of the State", Rowe dives deep into what happens when a child is removed from their family and placed in foster care. The statistics are dire:

"A study of nearly one thousand foster youth in the Midwest found that half left the system with criminal records, and more than 30 percent were imprisoned for violent crime within a year of leaving state care. At least 20 percent of prison inmates nationally are believed to be former foster children." (loc. 70*)

Conventional wisdom holds that these kids are more likely to end up in prison (or without a diploma, or homeless, or otherwise just struggling) because of troubled family backgrounds—they struggle because of the reasons for which they were placed in foster care. But the more Rowe dug into it, the more she questioned that assumption, and the more the research seemed to support the opposite: foster care wasn't reducing trauma but rather compounding it. When a child is moved from placement to placement to placement—I'm not sure if an average number of moves was mentioned, but Rowe does cite cases of children who were moved fifty or more (sometimes many more) times in a year—how is that child expected to develop healthy attachments and relationships, to keep up in school, and to learn the basic life skills that aren't really taught but learned through observation and repetition?

There are a lot of questions here that just don't have good answers: at what point is it safer to leave a child in a home where neglect or abuse is suspected, and at what point is it safer to remove that child to a system that is stopgap after stopgap after stopgap? And how often does "neglect" (e.g., an empty fridge) simply mean "poverty"? And when the state-as-parent does cause harm, how much can it be held responsible? (Other questions have much clearer answers, such as those surrounding the deep racism embedded in foster care.)

This is compassionate and complex reportage. The people Rowe profiles—former foster children who have found themselves in places ranging from PhD programs to life sentences—are treated with a lot of care, withoug skating over their darker moments. (Whole people, in shades of grey.) What she describes is much in line with other things I have read about foster care and about group homes (some suggestions for further reading below), but very, very pointed.

I am a little unclear on how some of the statistics play out—for example, how often is a child who is placed in foster care returned to their family, and after an average of how long? How do the outcomes differ? What is the tipping point? And, more broadly: What are other countries doing, and does anyone seem to have figured it out? Rowe mentions a program in the New York that is based on a UK model—a program that seems brilliant until (as with so many of the possible fixes Rowe investigates) the cracks begin to show. "But the biggest difference between the British version of Chelsea Foyer and New York City's showed up around education. The academic deficits among former foster youth in New York were severe [...] such that the requirement to be in school became a barrier. [...] Within a few years of opening, New York jettisoned the three-pronged European model of housing, education, and career, retooling to emphasize housing and employment only." (loc. 2670)

It's easy to look at this all and think "well, X would help"—but it becomes then a matter of "in order for X to happen, we'd need Y, for which we'd need Z, for which we'd need..." until you come back around to X. Maryanne's situation is one of the more high-profile of those Rowe includes. She was sentenced in 2019, but it seems that some parts of her case are ongoing. (Not getting more specific because how her case played out is a significant part of the book and worth reading in its entirety.) I couldn't find anything particularly recent online, but she's emblemic of a broken system that chews children up until they, too, leave broken.

Somewhere between 4 and 5 stars. Highly recommended.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Related books that readers might find interesting:
"Home Made" by Liz Hauck (group home)
"How the Other Half Eats" by Priya Fielding-Singh (food and poverty politics)
"To the End of June" by Cris Beam (foster care)
"No House to Call My Home" by Ryan Berg (group home)
"The Turnaway Study" by Diana Greene Foster (abortion; poverty and body politics)

For someone with only a basic understanding of the foster care system in the US, this book was a fantastic entry point. I appreciated the focus on those on the cusp or recently aging out of the system as this transitional stage presents unique challenges that are often unaddressed. There are other books that cover the topic of foster care from different angles, but this was the first one that I read that focused on this perspective. Claudia Rowe lets the life stories of various current and former foster teens/young adults speak for themselves. She did not need to do any heavy lifting in telling the reader how to interpret these stories because I think anyone with a heart and half a brain could see how the foster care to prison pipeline is harmful. Rowe includes some history and numbers to illustrate certain points, but it is smoothly woven into the narrative and does not affect the readability of the book. The reader need not be a scholar in order to understand; they simply need to be human and be able to access their humanity. I was tremendously affected by this book.

Claudia Rowe, using magnificent prose, captures the difficulties and nuances of being a child navigating life alone. I found myself absolutely devouring this book. Using anecdotal stories to help make the message clear while still using data to help back up her claims, this is an excellently researched book with incredible insight into the difficulties of our social welfare system. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has experience with the foster system or is interested in the complicated web that it weaves around vulnerable children. Thank you to Net Galley for the opportunity to review this book!

4 stars-When you think of foster kids a lot of what comes to mind is the little who get placed and then adopted to go to live happy full lives. What you don’t think of is that the majority of teenagers who are placed into foster care will end up in multiple homes, group homes, and potentially prison. The author provided a very thoroughly researched look at the foster to prison pipeline. Through the stories of eight kids, there are successes, but there are also failures in the system. My heart aches thinking about how some kids get placed in foster care and are “returned” to the system. This was an eye opening read, especially being a teacher who has taught kids from foster families. There is a lot of work to be done with the foster care system and this book will hopefully bring some light to that topic. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Told through eight different case studies with a rich history about the foster care and adoption system in the US, Rowe spells out one of the central arguments in her book she heard in a court case: if the children are the responsibility of the state while in the foster care and adoption system, is the state also responsible for crimes and other transgressions committed by those in foster care and adoption homes? What follows is an extremely compelling argument using first and secondhand accounts of individuals in varying stages of the foster care, adoption, criminal justice, and post-criminal justice systems.

Early on in the book, you see Rowe set up one of the overarching themes of the book: the relatively recent concept of the foster care-to-prison pipeline. Going into this book, I was aware of the abuse, underfunded, understaffed, and overworked caseload of social workers and the disregard for foster care kids, but this book opened my eyes up to much more and made me view it a different way. One of my favorite arguments she made in her book was about how the state spends money on “wards” (foster care children) to be raised by random people rather than using that money toward helping the family achieve upward mobility. Children are removed from their homes by the stage where, in a scarily large number of instances, are introduced to many foster and adoption homes, as foster parents “return” the child they adopted or fostered.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, please note that this ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

"Wards of the State" is an insightful review of the flaws of foster care, especially those inherent to the institution even when implemented correctly. It frames these through the experiences of former foster children now feeling those repercussions as adults, including several who have become activists for change. I appreciated the nuanced insight into the reforms to both foster care and the juvenile criminal justice system and the understanding that, while some changes are common sense, such a complicated situation cannot be easily resolved.
The book was let down in places by narrative passages from the point of view of the foster children, as it's unclear whether these are direct accounts by the featured individuals or if the author has fictionalized their experiences. If you skim these sections, particularly the beginning of the first chapter, the reporting in the rest of the book is worthwhile.
Content warning: due to the nature of the subject, this book tackles many intense topics such as child abuse frequently and in-depth.
Thank you to Abrams Press for providing a free Advanced Reader Copy of this book via NetGalley in return for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
I've read quite a few books on foster care and how it fails the kids. But this book digs deep and really shows the link between foster kids and prison. The various former foster kids that were focused on had difficult stories but so many of them took their past and are trying to make positive changes.

Have you wondered why the existing U.S. foster care system is so broken? This book answers that, and more. Why is there a foster care to prison pipeline? Why do so many foster kids end up homeless as adults? What can we do to make positive change in the lives of these children who deserve so much more? Read this thoroughly researched book to find out!

Claudia Rowe weaved a story of societal inadequacies worthy of a Jonathan Kozol story. Instead of a book filled with statistics and third person opinions, she introduced the reader to real people. Real children who do what they need to do in order to survive. Is it always right? Of course not. But would I do the same? Maybe…I am grateful I will never have to find out.
I am left wondering about Maryanne….

I'm fascinated with books like this and appreciate the author's authentic approach to uncovering more about the children and the fostering system. Well done. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.