Transcript

Claudia Rowe (on the foster care system) | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

From Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 28 min · 16,018 words · 357 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Claudia Rowe (on the foster care system) | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard", an episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard published February 4, 2026 (1 h 28 min, about 16,018 words). It mentions 12 people, works and ideas, including Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care, The Spider and the Fly, Arthur Longworth, New York Times, Hudson Valley.

What this episode is about

Claudia Rowe discusses her experiences and insights regarding the foster care system, highlighting the challenges faced by children in care and the impact of systemic issues on their lives. Throughout the conversation, she reflects on her personal journey and the transformative power of storytelling in advocating for change within the system.

Key takeaways

  • Seattle: where even East Coasters go to escape their past, one espresso at a time.
  • Bennington College: where grades are mere suggestions and creativity reigns—ideal for rebellious free spirits!
  • New York in the '80s: a wild blur of excess, proving that not all privileged kids get caught in the chaos.
  • Mom's literature lessons and Dad's NBC smarts—because who says you can't mix journalism with creative flair?
  • Print journalism: the discipline boot camp for aspiring writers, where deadlines become both the enemy and the muse.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: New York Times, Hudson Valley, Pikipsy Journal, Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care
  2. – 20:00: Hudson Valley, The Spider and the Fly, New York Times, Vasser College
  3. – 30:00: HubSpot, Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care, The Spider and the Fly, New York Times
  4. – 1:00:00: Arthur Longworth
  5. – 1:28:17: Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care

Notable quotes from "Claudia Rowe (on the foster care system) | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"

  • Bennington, Vermont. It is a teeny college that I think when I was there a thousand million years ago I think there were 600 total students and that was a high at the time.
    about Bennington College · at
  • But I was at this point freelancing for the New York Times because there are a lot of people in the Hudson Valley who are New York Times readers and New York Times recognize, hey, we got somebody there and she can sort of.
    about New York Times · at
  • Drive. It's 5 minutes, it's just a little Hudson Valley town. So there were these eight women's bodies in this little house about a block from Vasser College.
    about Vasser College · at
  • It's this true crime, what's him and memoir, what's me? And that's the book.
    about The Spider and the Fly · at
  • While I'm wrestling with this monstrosity manuscript, not person. and the Seattle PI says, Why don't you just come and be a staff reporter here?
    about Seattle Post Intelligencer · at
  • Conditions, and availability. All State North America Insurance Co. and affiliates, North Illinois. We are supported by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses, Monica, only…
    about HubSpot · at
  • Do anything questionable. And so, this teenage girl got a 19-year sentence. And so, by the way, that's the new book, Wards of the State, The Long Shadow of American Foster…
    about Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care · at
  • Brings Arthur to your attention and here's a guy who's in prison. He murdered someone and he's older and he has become an essaist and he's like incredibly articulate about explaining the experience.
    about Arthur Longworth · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Arthur Longworth — Person · Referenced expert/source turned key character · 2 mentions · first at
    Incarcerated writer serving a life sentence; provides an articulate framework for how foster care can produce incarceration outcomes and becomes a major character in Claudia's book.
  • Tuana Broly — Person · Referenced news story/person (passing reference) · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as an example of 'weird news' associated with the Poughkeepsie/Hudson Valley area; used to contextualize the guest's early reporting environment.
    Okay. So, the Tuana Broly story was You can look it up. Back check it. We will.

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

  • New York Times — Company · Business focus · 4 mentions · first at
    Claudia Rowe's former employer, mentioned in the context of her journalism career
  • Pikipsy Journal — Company · Business focus · 2 mentions · first at
    Claudia Rowe's former employer, mentioned in the context of her journalism career
    So that exasperated me. So it's the late 1990s and I am in New York, upstate New York or midstate I Hudson Valley. I had worked at the local small town paper, the Pikipsy…
  • Seattle Post Intelligencer — Company · Business focus · 1 mention · first at
    Claudia Rowe's former employer, mentioned in the context of her journalism career

Places & events

  • Hudson Valley — Place · Setting · 4 mentions · first at
    Location where Claudia Rowe lived and worked, mentioned in the context of her journalism career
    So that exasperated me. So it's the late 1990s and I am in New York, upstate New York or midstate I Hudson Valley. I had worked at the local small town paper, the Pikipsy…
  • Bennington College — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Claudia Rowe's alma mater, mentioned in the context of her education
  • Vasser College — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Location mentioned in the context of a crime story Claudia Rowe covered

Sponsors

  • Allstate — Product · Sponsor · 4 mentions
    Sponsor of the podcast, mentioned in an ad read
  • HubSpot — Product · Sponsor · 2 mentions · first at
    Sponsor of the podcast, mentioned in an ad read

Full transcript with timestamps

Are you in from Washington? Yes, I came in last night. Okay. And where do you live in Washington?

Seattle. In Seattle. Nice. Do you like it there? I do love Seattle. I am New York native, but born and raised and everything, but um yeah, I've been in Seattle about 22 22 years.

What brought you there? Needed to change my life. You needed to change your life.

Needed to leave the East. Okay, great. That's great. Under penalty of law. in your desperation of uh had to get away.

Sure. We can talk about that. Sure. Yeah. Oh, we're rolling. Yeah. Yeah. Um so you're from New York originally.

Are we actually rolling? Yeah, we always roll. Does that scare you? That was fine.

Um where in New York are you from? Upper West Side. Oh, the Upper West Side. What did mom and dad do?

Mom was a literature professor. Oh, okay. Dad was a executive at NBC. No kidding. Wow.

And you didn't want to go into show business? I'm a writer. I've always been. That's

that's that. And does that mean you're more like mom than dad? I think I'm a blend. I am I am in truth. Yes. More like her. But you know, he was um NBC News promotion. So he's news guy, politics guy. She's literature writer person.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's a marriage of both. What you've gone into news and literature. I this feels like a dreamy parent situation. Yeah. Like both are smart,

clearly industrious, accomplished. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And uh Okay. So, thank you.

Where did you go to school? Did you go to in New York? I went to Trinity High School.

Okay. And what about college? Bennington College. Where's that? Bennington, Vermont. It is a teeny teeny teeny college that I think when I was there a thousand million years ago um

I think there were 600 total students and that was a high at the time. Oh really? Wow.

Teeny. Yeah. Liberal. Why that school? Why that school? Bennington was I probably still is but certainly was um kind of create your own major. No grades. We didn't have grades.

Pass fail. um pass fail, no SATs required, though I took them and gave them and they were fine. But you know, it was a very um unconventional, semi-experimental, very free form, make your own. It was an art school. Most people there were art people. Um I had gone to Trinity, very traditional, as you might guess.

No, I don't. Is that a private school that is of repute? Yeah. Yeah, it's sort of in that New York City private school. Okay. Did you have crazy classmates that went on to rule the world?

I had a classmate and best friend who did become pretty successful out here. I don't know about ruling the world, but she's a successful writer.

Okay. So, she's in route to ruling the world. She's um are there others? No. Like George Clooney or anything?

Not like that. No. No. No. Um Goldman Sachs presidents. Probably. Probably. Probably. So, that makes sense. you were in a kind of very elite whatever and you're like I want the opposite. I want no structure, no status.

I think that was my parents really. Oh, they pushed for that. My mom, she knew, you know, Trinity was

fine. Yeah. Yeah. Academically at least. Um but I think she recognized I needed something different and I was a more free form kind of kid.

Yeah. Yeah. Would I be right to assume that this is kind of like uh some pretty privileged kids that are having some pretty exceptional lives? Like was there was it life in the fast lane kind of a

It was all the things you've heard about New York in the 1980s. Highly corrupt, highly messed up, over everything. Overdrugged, over sexed, over moneyed, over everything.

Yeah, it was all that. Yeah. Wall Street's kind of Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you fit into that?

No. How much cocaine were you into? I I did I did not get into that which is why I had went to a little teeny college in Vermont.

Yeah. And did you get a journalism degree from there? They did not have a journalism program anything.

Um she got degree literature major. Okay. Creative writing. Okay. I knew then that I had the idea that journalism might be for me, but I kind of had to create it there because they didn't have it. I cared about social issues, but I just wanted to be a writer. And I think I recognized pretty quickly, you know, I wanted to be like a magazine journalist, long form magazine writing back when magazines were hot,

you know, Esquire, right? Harper's, you know, back in the heyday of of magazine journalism. And then I think I recognized that print journalism was going to teach me these skills, these disciplines like structure, pacing, deadlines, turnit in

that that I didn't get at my flaky free form, be anything you want college. I knew that I needed some tools and I think I recognized that newspapers would give that to me and they did.

Mhm. They also became kind of a crutch and a hard thing to break out of. Well, you end up so busy there, right?

And there's sort of an addictive like you perform this trick, this thing, and then they go, "Good."

Yeah. And it comes out, which is rewarding. Very gratifying. Yes. And people respond. I love the reader response. And that became kind of hard to break out of.

Yes. when I finally had a story that I really felt I needed to tell in a book, which was not this book, but the previous

This is about a murder. You got that? Right. So, how do we get from this bonkers liberal arts school in Vermont to Washington to sitting down and spending a lot of time with a murderer? And then ultimately, what lands you in a courtroom in Seattle witnessing the murder trial of a 16-year-old, now 18?

This is a long answer. Is that okay? We love long answers. Okay. This is going to be six hours. I don't know if you were born.

The reason I ask is I love your writing. Thank you. And I love your writing not just cuz the words smmithery. Your essential viewpoint is present to me or at least what I think it is. And it's incredibly non-judgmental and not saccharine. It's like I'm rooting for this person on some level and this person's [ __ ] up. And here's the whole thing. And I appreciate that so much because I feel like so many things land in a just um like whether they're tearing someone down or they're building them up, there seems to be little nuance and in and in and evensidedness. And the way you write I I appreciate as being like as close as you get to the truth, which is like it's all things. So you have a perspective.

That's why I asked because I think it's rare. Thank you. Look, I think all of the journalism that I do is powered um by confusion edging into fear. You know, people who are scary. My way of

confronting that is not to run from it but to drive toward it. Try to understand how do they understand themselves? How do they understand what they're doing? How do they think this helps me?

Yes. they become then demystified right down brought down a little bit to you know sort of human

humans right we're all humans we all have a logic for what we do even if it's not obvious to others

and I'll argue we're more comfortable thinking these people that scare us are like seven deviations away from us but they're one that's what's more interesting

right so I think that the world sees it like you do most people like these are these others right right

in doing the first book with this serial killer who killed at least eight women. He was referred to constantly as monster. He was a monster.

And to me at the time I was much younger then. Um at the time that was really frustrating like monster. Yes.

That gives me nothing. Yes. How does one become a monster? What do we do with a monster?

So it's a made up. It's a fake thing, right? It's a madeup thing. He's not magic, you know? He's not some mythic figure. He's like a dude. So

monster really bothered me this idea and I found it incredibly opaque. Like not illuminating in any way. In fact, almost determinedly not illuminating.

Yeah. So that exasperated me. So it's the late 1990s and I am in New York, upstate New York or midstate I Hudson Valley. I had worked at the local small town paper, the Pikipsy Journal. I had left that paper and was kind of unsure what I was going to do with myself. Um, had very mixed feelings about journalism as a result of working at that paper. Mhm.

But I was at this point freelancing for the New York Times because there are a lot of people in the Hudson Valley who are New York Times readers and New York Times recognize, hey, we got we got somebody there and she can sort of babysit stories for us. And so, um, my boyfriend at the time was still working at the Pikipsy Journal and, uh, we lived together. He would come home and say, "Hey, Claudia, like there are these women missing." And nobody's writing about it. The paper won't write about it. The paper isn't covering it. Everyone's saying, "Oh, these are like street walkers and if they're missing, they want to be missing. They don't want to be found."

And that's what the police were saying. And this boyfriend of mine said, "You're writing for the New York Times. You got to tell them this is a thing and it's and no one's really taking it seriously here." So my editor at the Times, um, you know what's going on up there this week? What boring thing has happened?

Well, we were actually It was actually Pikipsy was kind of known for like weird news, freaky news. Yeah, there was a lot of weird

like the Toana Broly story. I don't You are too young. You Okay. You're You're still younger than 50. I don't know. I'm 50.

You're younger than I Oh, wow. You look incredible. Congratulations. Um Okay. So, the Tuana Broly story was You can look it up. Back check it. We will. Um anyway, a lot of weird crime in the area. And so when the editor said, "What's going on up there?" I said, "Well, I don't really know if this is a story but

there are these women. There were like I don't know at that point maybe six or seven who were missing and nobody had really done serious a serious look at this." And I said, "Hey, I don't know if this is a thing, but it's something." He said,

"Get on that. get on right now. Start making phone calls. So, I did um started sort of running down their families and their boyfriends and talking to them and the moms who were looking for these women.

Was there a pattern? Yes, they were all women who were sort of mostly sort of slight white women, not unlike myself. Yeah.

And they all were supporting drug habits, mostly crack, by walking Main Street in Pikipsy. Got it.

So they were street walkers supporting drug habits. And this is why maybe nobody was much looking at them. Duchess County, as you may or may not know, is beautiful, wealthy, horse country. A lot of movie stars live there except in the city of Pikipsy which is kind of

Oh wow. Not that a little grittier. A lot. That's a lovely lovely euphemism. So I'm I'm talking to these women's families. Um a guy turns himself in a week later in no way because of what I'm doing. It's just this confluence of timing. In fact, that that morning I had um an appointment to interview the chief of detectives. What are you doing about these women? And I show up at his office and he hands me a piece of paper with an address on it.

Go. And it's dude's house where they have now found the bodies of eight women who have been in the home.

I hate to say you're lucky, but you've already done all the interviews with the family. You're like, this timing of this is insane.

Yeah. I go across, you know, get in my car, drive. It's 5 minutes, you know, it's just a little Hudson Valley town. So there were these eight women's bodies in this little house about a block from Vasser College.

And they had been decaying in there, some of them 2 years. Oh my god. Was he living in there?

Yeah. With his mom and dad and teenage sister. Get the [ __ ] out. No. Okay. So they're hoarders. So all this stuff comes out. So they're hoarders. like the whole um

ecosystem. The whole ecosystem of the house kind they the like dead bodies kind of just blend into the general

are they exposed or are they like No, there are five in the attic, three in the basement.

Anyway, so there I am standing out there. I am still at this point kind of a young reporter. I've been a reporter like I don't know 5 years or something. TV is amassing 48 hours. Everybody's showing up and I'm just like this little local reporter on the scene. I'm writing all this for the New York Times because I'm ahead of the story. Anyway, I got of course obsessed, right? Who is this guy? How does this happen?

You became kind of infatuated with finding out. Not infatuated. Okay, that's the wrong word.

That is the wrong word. Okay, cuz that implies some kind of attraction right? I don't mean that. I did get fixated on how does this happen? What makes this person? I just could not stop. Yeah.

So, so it's 1998 when he confesses and I'm thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it.

And I finally wrote to him a year later. So, I didn't do anything. I just sort of ruminated on it.

Wrote to him. And then that sort of touches off this five-year correspondence. By this point, of course, he's arrested. He's imprisoned. Plead guilty. He's at ADC. He was initially at Duchess County Jail still when I first wrote to him. I think he eventually ended up at Attica. And so I, you know, some phone calls, some visits. I tried a lot of letters. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out what makes this person, right? Like who is this this monster right?

How do you get to be that person? What are the forces that contribute to this person? Um, and of course his family who would never talk to me. Um, his mom through a lawyer said she would if I paid her. Like I don't have any money and you don't I don't do that. That's not

that's [snorts] not what I'm doing here. That's not how it's done. It's not what I do. It's not how I do it and I don't have any money anyway. Um, so they never talked to me. So, it was kind of back on me to understand the women, how they got to be in the position of knowing him.

Yeah. Um, and then as I went on and on, it got to be, well, why are you doing this, Claudia? Why are you so fixated on this? What is it about you?

So, then it becomes kind of a memoir. It's this true crime, what's him and memoir, what's me? And that's the book. What's the name of it?

The spider and the fly. The spider and the fly. Who's the spider? The fly. I just got chill.

Yeah, that sounds wonderful. I feel like there's a mo there's going to is there a movie?

It did get optioned. Okay. Yeah, I was going to say but that expired. Okay. It's a pretty complicated and complex

some racial elements. He's Africaname. All the victims are white women except for one who was never actually found and she's African-American. Whole different thing. So I wrote that book or I was attempting to write that book. So it's 99 through 2003 and I'm trying I'm in this like psychological tango with this guy.

Can I ask quickly is it pleasurable that that No, it was utterly horrifying and terrifying to me.

I mean he was mean. He was not charming serial killer like of the movies. He was no Ted Bundy.

He was an [ __ ] Can I Can I You can use all the words. He was really mean and really ugly

and really abusive and anyone who had an ounce of um self-confidence or self-worth would have been like, "Well, [ __ ] this guy."

Yeah. But I didn't. Um because I was sort of addicted to understanding. I just had to get into his head.

Yeah. So, I did, you know, a little somewhat, whatever. You can see I'm going on a big limb, but I would imagine, too, the guy's kind of got to be a master of leverage if he got other people in these situations. Like, the man probably enjoys that I have something you want.

Totes. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and he knew you were his entertainment while he was silence of the lambs,

right? You're not the first person to make that observation. We just had Anthony Hopkins on that right?

So, this guy is no Anthony Hopkins. He is um a guy who impressed no one in his virtually all-white high school as anything. He was sort of this in he's an enormous person. He was

um an enormous person physically but sort of a very shy retiring person socially. So I was attempting to do this book. It was completely taking over my life. Uh the boyfriend who I mentioned Yeah. blowing that apart is not a good situation. And so then it ends up that I'm uh

sort of alone in a little cabin in the Hudson Valley and the only person I have steady contact with is

that guy. Yeah. Oh, this is so fascinating. Well, it was also, you know, not that healthy.

Yeah, it sounds slippery. Very slippery. Thus, I had to abscondone to the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, leave. I had to. So, what happened was I was um I had I didn't know the West Coast at all.

By the way, I just I love that story. I know the notion that you got You're like um the trope in the cop movie where he's just he's in too deep.

Yeah. Yeah. Just like you lose yourself in this story. It's kind of because it has something to do with me. What is the thing? Right.

Okay. I eventually figured that out. But during all this, I didn't know the West Coast at all. I'm in this sort of weird hot house environment with this person and I don't really I'm sort of estranged from everybody. Um and I start um applying to some writer residency programs. I didn't know the West and I thought, "Oh, maybe this is a way to see another part of the country." A couple of residency programs, they saw parts of this book in progress and said, "Oh, yes. come and finish your crazy insane book out here in Washington State. And I went to one and when I uh this is in 2002 or two two or three. Yep. And then when I was at one in Washington state, another one in Washington state said, "Why don't you come here?" So I was like "Oh

yeah. Washington likes me." Yeah. All right. Love who loves you back. Went back to New York, put all my stuff in storage, got in the car, don't know a soul in Washington.

Yeah. I'm driving out there and I'm just going to sublet this place and finish this insane book. That is not what happened. Um that I'd be in Seattle 3 months finishing this insane book and then I didn't have any other ideas. But in fact, this insane book was really too much for me at the time. And um so I had sent my clips, you know, I was still freelancing for the New York Times and I sent my clips to the Seattle Post Intelligencer thinking maybe I'll get some freelance work while I'm out here, while I'm wrestling with this monstrosity manuscript, not person. Um and the Seattle PI says, "Why don't you just come and be a staff reporter here?"

Yeah. Full-time. And I thank goodness because I can't deal with this book and I'm just gonna do that. and okay, it was an interesting experience and I'll just put it put it away and that's unfinished business and that's that. Yeah. So, I'm a reporter at the PI for five and a half years, social issues, child welfare, juvenile justice. I'm doing my stuff, my stuff that I care about.

And then the paper folds. Good night. Goodbye. No more. We're all laid off. And yeah, it was quite stressful. By then I had gotten married and I was nine months pregnant boy and the paper folded.

So husband was also at the paper. So now we're double unemployed with a baby on the way and his

uh daughter. Well, what are we going to do? So I uh end up getting a job um in philanthropy writing for a foundation. He goes to school and to complete his degree. And during that period, I thought, you know, that book, that killer book that I never finished.

I'm a better reporter now. I have um more grounded in my life. I think I can I think I can make something out of that. I think that was a real thing that I didn't see through and I think I I think it says something and I'm going to finish it. And I did finish it and sold the book and that was that. So that's the spider and the fly and that came out in 2017.

Okay. I have a weird question. When you left New York for the West Coast and you kind of like put that away, did you miss him?

I did not miss him, but I never put it away. So I had this home office and I had, you know, piles and boxes of notes and letters and files and everything. I never put them away. They were just all around me in my office for years just sort of haunting me.

I did not miss him, but I knew that I had abruptly absconded. You know, I never said, "I'm done with you and here's why." I just disappeared.

Yeah. And I wondered often what was that like for him? And it was kind of a turning of the tables and seizing control and the whole thing.

Yeah. You loved him. Yeah. Wow. I can imagine not missing him, but I for me personally, I could imagine missing the obsession in that when I'm in an obsession, it it cancels out all other distractions. It's like, this is what I like. The one nice thing about being an addict is you have a single mission in the day, but like stay high. You're not worried about all the other stuff. You get sober, you're like, "Oh, [ __ ] There's just all this other stuff I didn't have to think about cuz I was only thinking about this one thing."

It's part of what the drug is doing is masking all the other stuff. priority, which is like in some weird way comforting.

I don't want to give away the end of the book, but there is a sort of I circle back as a as an older person, hey you, hey me, and that becomes kind of the end of the book.

Oh my god, I'm I can't wait to read this. Yeah. So then to get to your point about how am I in this courtroom with this girl, right? Okay, so I'm very interested in what makes people do the things that they do. How do they understand their actions? Especially extremely violent, hard to comprehend actions, especially actions that seem counter to one's own interest, right? Like,

what is this that? So, I've done this book. I'm back in the newsroom. Now, I'm at the Seattle Times because I'm in a different newsroom and my job, I'm an education reporter, kind of frustrated that the news thing is like taking up all my head space. I can't think. I can't get any ideas. I'm

sort of exasperated. I want to do another book, but the news is sort of blinding me. I can't think of anything except the day deadline.

Yeah. And it's non-stop. It's ever nonstop. And I can't get separate from it. I also am not able to do newswriting and bookw writing. I can't do them at the same time. Okay.

It's two different rhythms and it's not a quick toggle. takes a while. The news thing is easy for me to get to get into the long form book thing. It takes a while.

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So, I left the newsroom. Like, I'm never going to I'm never going to come up with anything if I'm still in the newsroom. I can't do it. So, I I get this other gig, ghostwriting, uh business people's books. But during that period, I think there's this forensic psychologist I know who often testifies in juvenile homicide cases generally for the defense. Um, he was sort of interesting to me. I was intrigued by his work. I thought maybe I would want to write something about that.

Yeah. So, he goes, "Okay, I'm going to be testifying in this case of this teenage girl. He's actually going to testify for the prosecution and what he thinks a proper sentence should be. So, this is unusual for him

because he's usually for the defense and this is a teenage girl whose case, you know, it kind of come across my radar.

I was going to say you must have heard about it when it had happened two years prior.

I knew when it had happened, but I was a good dutiful education reporter and I was going to keep it straight and I didn't get I wasn't doing much studying. I wasn't involved. I wasn't digging into her case in any way. I knew her name. I knew what had supposedly happened and that's all I knew.

Yes. So now I'm in court and it's February 2019. She has just turned 19 at this point and she has plead guilty and so we're in the sentencing hearing

and she's plead guilty to shooting a man in his car. When she was 16 years old, he was 21 years old.

Correct. Yeah. and she shot him in the head in his car. He took his phone and his wallet

and on a cold winter's night in Seattle. Okay, that's it. That's all I know. Go to court. The forensic psychologist never testifies. He's never called,

but the sentencing hearing very atypically continues is continued over 3 days, not consecutive, but over the course of six weeks, they have another one and another one. This is very unusual. And by the end of that period, you know, she's in court. I see her crying, the whole thing.

Can I add one detail? I think it's relevant. The judge was previously a real estate attorney specializing in real estate law.

He He's a new judge, and this is his very first murder trial. Yes. And it is a girl that was 16 that they've

purposely delayed her trial so she'll be an adult. Yes. So, this dude, this is a lot on this dude's plate.

Yes. And the prosecutor is a a very talented, powerful prosecutor. Um, she is really a seasoned veteran, even though she's not that old. She's just a very talented prosecutor and zealous, hard driving.

I was going to use the word rabid, but continue. Yeah. some would some would um I think she intimidated the judge um who didn't want to mess up, didn't want to do anything wrong, didn't do anything questionable. And so, uh this teenage girl got a 19-year sentence. And so, by the way, that's the new book, Wards of the State, The Long Shadow of American Foster Care. I have to say the name of the book. Um, so by the end of this sentencing proceeding, I realize, oh, this isn't really a crime story. This is a foster care story because her reality of running from her foster care placement and being on the street and how it was that she was in this guy's car and the whole thing, her history suddenly is in front of me and it meshes with all the stuff I've covered as a reporter years prior back at the old Seattle PI. I had written stories about what happens to older youth in foster care

as they quote age out. Correct. And you know, I wrote a couple of stories. I didn't get that deep, but it was in my head. Some of the um some of the stats about the outcomes for kids when they age out had always shocked me. Oh, yeah. And even more shocking was that it seemed like

like nobody thought this was a thing. Like nobody made a big deal of it. Yeah, there were some reports and yeah, some reporters wrote some stories, but it wasn't some like national issue. Anna, can I read a couple of those stats? So, please. Yeah, this is the foster care to prison pipeline. 25% [snorts] of all inmates were in foster care.

20 to 25% of state prison inmates are believed to be, you know, alumni of This wasn't in your book, but I learned this in a previous episode and I relooked it up, but 50% of homeless people spent time in foster care. In my book, I'm a little more conservative and I can that's probably true. But what we say or what I can

document is that roughly 25 to 30% of youth and young adult homeless, so homeless people who are say in their mid20s,

um yes, are are alum alumni, which is a weird. If you drive around LA, the the vast majority are like below 30. I would say they are very likely to be ex former foster youth.

Yes. And I wrote this down. This is a direct quote, so I know I'm going to get this one right. A study of nearly 1,000 foster youth in the Midwest found that half left the system with criminal records, and more than 30% were in prison for violent crime within a year of leaving stateare. Uh, [sighs] these are so

their post-traumatic stress is nearly twice the rate of Iraq war veterans. Wow. I mean, yeah, I'm not surprised. I mean,

and something I hadn't really considered is like, and this is a quote, too, legions of middle class and affluent kids grow up in homes, convulse with addiction, abuse, and neglect, but their families rarely face that risk. So, it's almost exclusively poor kids that end up in foster care.

Absolutely. Yeah. So, just all these numbers right out of the gate just like [ __ ] I mean, if ever there's a smoking gun to a problem, it's like when let's even say it was 10% of the prison population or [ __ ] five.

Also, this is a system supposed to save kids and these are the results. Could be worse.

So, one reason the criminal record number is so high is that a lot of kids are in juvie, right? They're in juvenile detention while they're still in foster care. So that's the record. There are many young people who age out and then they're on the street and then they're in the county jail and then they're in state prison. So that's contributing to that.

And they also pick up records by running. So many of them run from these houses or they run from their uh family they were assigned to.

Right. So you run. So this was Maryanne, this first girl, right? You run not necessarily because of abuse in your foster home. more often or very often foster kids are on the street and you know if you're running it doesn't mean you're running it means you're not where you're supposed to be. You're out of your assigned placement

because they are often looking for their families. Um Maryanne was often looking for her mother who was on the street

heroin addict or they are looking for other kids, other foster kids, other street kids, kids who get them like their tribe, right? like somebody who they're looking for connection, right? They're not necessarily fleeing abuse. They are looking for something,

craving connection. You're on the street. You have no money. You are very likely to shoplift because you're hungry and so you get picked up by the cops and you go to juvie. So there, you just got to be part of that massive statistic. That's how it happens.

Or you don't get adopted by the time you're a teenager. You end up in a group home and group homes are typically very violent. So kids fight one another, they assault staff, cops are called, someone goes to juvie.

There you just became part of that statistic again. Yeah. There are a couple of like really basic ways that are driving that number.

Yeah. Um so anyway, I'm in court. I see that this girl Maryanne is kind of the embodiment of all this stuff that had been sort of rumbling around in my head for years as a reporter. And there she is in front of me. Whoa. So, I want to understand you. Help me get in your head.

Yeah. How do we end up shooting somebody? There has to be a lot of reasons. So, that was the start. And then the book goes way beyond Maryanne. Maryanne is one of six main characters in this book, all of whom um they range in in age. The youngest was not Maryanne. The youngest was 18 when she and I started talking. and the oldest was in his late 50s. And the point being, this is not some recent trend or some sudden spike. This has been the case for a long time, for virtually as long as we've had foster care, you know, over a century. This overlap with the criminal justice system or the criminal legal system, whatever is your preferred building.

Um, uh, this has been a thing all along. It seems like you've read the book, so you know that even um even like in 1892, the first person legally executed in the brand new state of Wyoming, foster kid,

who shot two guys. Um again, desperate on the street, hungry, all stuff. Yeah. But again, here's what I I love about your book is like it would be very easily for you to just become a champion of Marian like and just explain how nothing's her fault and in some way nothing is her fault, but I think you're just very honest about all the she was [ __ ] hard to deal with. So she's 9 years old when she enters, right? She lives with her father. She got a bloody nose when they arrive. The dad beats her. They've called child protective services up teen times. She's clearly in a bad dangerous situation.

Yes. She enters, she goes first with a rel or a friend of the dads. She's [snorts] there with her and then she's a lot to deal with. She's very clingy, I guess, which is so heartbreaking,

right? And she gets returned [snorts] and not returned to her dad. She gets returned to the foster. So that person is a foster placement and that person says you got to take her state take her. I cannot deal. That person was actually the second person. There's first a couple that Maryannne said she loved who had like puppies at Christmas time or whatever. Elderly couple. That's sort of an emergency placement. It's never intended to be long term. But Maryannne kid doesn't know that. Kids don't know, right? But then they pretty quickly pick up because Maryanne has moved to this friend of the dads.

And even the Yeah, the friend of the dads when she finds out she's no longer living there, she gets picked up at school. The woman never says goodbye to her or tells her, "Hey, I can't handle this." It just, "Hey, hey, I'm here. I'm going to take you to another stranger's place."

And she gets picked up at school, a social worker goes, "Hey, your stuff's in the car. Get in the car." This is really typical. The main thing about Maryanne is the first thing I needed to find out is, is she some kind of aberration, some kind of extreme case or what?

Not at all. I mean, not everyone is going to shoot someone in the head, but her path

through foster care was totally standard. She's in halfozen placements. So, there's this friend of the dads, can't deal. And um they take Maryanne to this other woman who she says was more geared toward teenagers, couldn't deal with a younger kid. um that person sort of shunts her over to a family where she lives for a year or so. Um and then you know the aim of foster care, the stated aim is permanence, which means you get adopted or you're going to your original parents,

right? Her parents right, parental rights have been severed long before. So the only sort of avenue for her is adoption. So from this family where she is being fostered, there's kind of, you know, several potential suitor families who are going to adopt Maryanne. And and for one reason or another, nothing works out. There are this thing that nobody knows about, adoption fairs, where the kids are plunked down at a table with like arts and crafts and prospective families walk by and

it's like puppies in the check them out. It's like we're like checking you out. And again, this is was the same in, you know, the 19th century.

Um, oh my god. In in that case, kids were like on stage performing a little diddy or a little poem or a little song.

Annie. Yeah, it's literally Annie. literally. And so at by this point, Maryanne is 12, which is sort of like your last chance. If you're not adopted by that point, you're not a cute little kid anymore.

Families typically don't want an older kid for, you know, understandable reasons and that the child already has so much history, so much trauma. So a lot of families go, "No, this family said yes." They said, "She's ours. We'll take her." And the state like all states so there are financial incentives to get kids adopted like federal government gives the state money for the kids

successful adoption. So they want it to happen fast and they do not want to reverse it.

She had two lunches. Two lunches and an overnight sleepover. Yeah. Two lunches and an overnight and boom she's with them

like for like they're her parents. Yeah. It's kind of a foster to adopt situation. So there's like a a brief few months where

but it's foster to adopt like lease to own. Yes. Yes. Yes. But here's where you don't gloss over how impossible it is to raise Maryanne at this point

who has no idea has never in her entire life been part of like a conventional family. Doesn't know about dinner

and she wants to eat in her room. Of course. Yeah. They want to watch movies together as a family.

Weird about it. Do they get training? So this is the thing, very little state support. Yes, there is a social worker involved, but no, there's not intensive prep for adoptive families, particularly families adopting from foster care, particularly families adopting a kid who was, you know, demonstrably abused.

I also think there's a weird thing, and you point out in the very liberal state of Washington, you cannot force a kid over the age of 13 to have counseling. So it's like what should be definitely a mandatory as part of all this is like she should have had to go a few times a week.

So she did have a lot of counsel. But she did. She hated all her therapists. She says

and you can kind of understand because you need to forge a connection with a therapist and foster kids are like moving around and everyone comes in and out. Social workers change and lawyers change and foster parents change.

Why would they trust the therapist? They can't trust anything. At some point you accept this is reality. I'm not getting place. I'm never going to be anywhere for longer. That you know like you have to throw in the towel. I think you have to give up hope pretty early into this as a survival instinct probably.

Yeah. Just like I [snorts] don't know how many times could you have your hopes up that this is going to work out and then you get jerked out without any warning. It's like ultimate eventually you'd be like I know how this works. I mean, the kids need therapy, but the the parents should have mandatory therapy, too.

Yes. And a social worker observed that because they pretty quickly after about two years, even sooner than that, they're like, "No, we got to we got to sever this adoption. We got to we got to break this apart." No, they she scared them.

Yeah. Right. Through her eyes, it's one thing, right? Through her eyes, they never, you know, they overreacted to everything. They never really got her. They freaked out about everything. That's her line. They, I will say, never talked to me. I attempted many times to interview them. Not interested.

They're probably a bit ashamed that it they didn't talk to the defense or the prosecution either. They basically hired a lawyer. Here are our files. We're done.

Yeah. This is a point I want to enter into this incredibly complex situation, which is there are multiple factors happening here, too. There is the um nurture which is not ideal which is why they ended up in foster. That's the nurture side. But then there's a reality of she is the child of an addict and a physically abusive

also man. Okay. Yeah. So both addicts, one physically abusive. Those are also her genetics.

Yes. Like this is the really unfortunate part. Not only do they need the amount of help any kid would need, they actually probably need more because there's a pretty good clue about what where they're coming from.

I bet a lot of people who decide to get in the f like to foster or adopt, they have this idea probably that like I can save this kid or I once they're in my care like they'll be better.

Love will heal all. Yeah. Or like it is like that. It's like love is all love. It's a little bit of a savior complex a little bit.

I'm reading the book and I'm just feeling [ __ ] terrible and I'm going, "Oh my god, I got to somehow figure out how to help these little people." And so it can be very genuine. It's like heartbreaking. And then you get in the reality of like so am I bringing someone into my two kids' lives that could have all these things and is that their should they take on that because I have that compul like it's complicated even if you're very well-intentioned.

Absolutely. You know like I said there are she's one of six main characters um in the book all of them illuminate some aspect of this connection with prison like group homes running away uh broken adoptions. She's not the only one in the book who who had a broken adoption. Um, and then aging out without support. So, kids,

you know, age out of the system at 18. You're 18. Thanks. You're a legal adult. Goodbye. Or 21.

You have zero skills, right? You have zero skills and no support system. And, you know, 50% of kids in foster care who grow up in foster care do not get a high school diploma. So you are likely to be 18 years old with no high school diploma, no support.

What do you think is going to happen? Right? And you know, you can get extended foster care till 21 if you are working or in school. But a lot of kids by the time there's a possibility of the state not being running their life,

they're like, "Fuck this. I'm out." You know, and the other thing is that when you grow up in foster care, sort of normal teenage stuff like having a job after school or going to friends houses for a sleepover or having friends come to your house for a sleepover is not happening. Like there are other uh young people in the book who like are growing up in group homes. You're in a group home. Hey, at this appointed hour you are here. the doors are locked and no there's no guest hanging out with you staying over and no you can't have a job after school you're after school you're back here

also these tiny things [clears throat] like when they got her one of the things that the the one of the concerned people called Maryanne uh protective services on is they looked through her window of her bedroom and she had no clothes in her closet she had nothing hanging on the walls she was just this little girl with nothing sitting in a box so it's like Even these little things of how you build your identity and that's a safety net. It's like I have these items and I'm into this band and I have this poster and I have these CDs. Like all those little building blocks of identity are you can't have them.

Mhm. Yeah. [ __ ] And and then then I think the other thing that's super prevalent and certainly happened with Marian is like she loses her virginity at 13. Pretty soon thereafter she's sex trafficked. So her adopted parents say we cannot deal and they sort of hand her over to her older halfsister but they are still technically her her people.

Okay. Uh the older halfsister moves out of state and then Maryanne is just on her own on the street. Nobody like her adopted parents don't want her. Her older sister is gone. It's just boom.

What do you think is going to happen? Yeah, she's doing whatever she can to survive and she is eventually picked up again by the state and handed over to the last foster parent. Um, but at that point, yes, she is a chronic runner. Not because she doesn't like that last foster parent. In fact, she kind of loved that last foster parent who is a pretty fascinating character. But by this point, this is like a chronic fight orflight thing. also a girl who she befriended at that last foster parents home, another foster girl. She's out on the street all the time. Um, Mariana sort of glombmed on to her. Um, and they do all this stuff together out on the street.

Yes, they do all the stuff and then there she is in the car with the dude on a cold winter's night.

She's 16 and living with her boyfriend sort of. Yeah. and sort of on the run intermittently back at the foster parents home. But when you go when you take off from your placement, the state goes, "Okay, we need that bed for someone else. So if you want to come back, you can't come back."

So like there's where are you going to come back to? Right. So she's living with her boyfriend. She's 16. She's with this 21-year-old dude. Yes.

Who's got a Jaguar, he's got a handgun, he's got drugs, he's got money. Though she barely knows the guy. She's with him like one time and they drive around and it seems he seems nice and cool.

He he lets her hold her his gun. She posts a picture of herself on Facebook holding the gun and mugging for the camera which becomes part of the trial

as if this is some kind of pattern of hers. So then the next night they're they're on the street driving around. You know what what was the plan really? I mean, the the sort of defense argument is a robbery gone wrong, right? So, maybe she and this other girl on the street who she was with and they're both in the dude's

isn't that's the prosecution's theory. No. Well, the defense has a couple of stories and that was part of the reason that this sentencing hearing kept getting continued cuz the judge said, "Hey, get your story straight. What are you trying to say?" Yeah.

Um, you know, at one point she says it's a rape. It's a rape. Um, the pro then there's this robbery gone wrong. I mean, I could say what I think it was.

What do you think? What I think it was was a planned robbery. Oh, I do think it was a planned robbery. And basically what happened is that her friend also in the car splits because dude the victim also had another person in the car. His younger brother. Younger brother and friend both leave. Not in a good way. Younger brother is sort of um harassing the girls and she you know. So younger brother gets out, friend gets out, and then there's Maryanne alone with the guy. And maybe their plan to rob this guy is is not really working out as she anticipates.

He pulls over to this like deserted clearing. He wants to have sex. She she allows it to happen, but in her telling while it was happening, he starts getting really abusive and saying

calling her a hoe and other stuff and she doesn't want it to be happening anymore.

I was also thinking how sad the duplicity of men can be, which is like he had been so nice to her and so generous according to her and then yeah, postcoidal he's a [ __ ] [ __ ] He got what he wanted

or in the middle of it or whatever. Whatever. Anyway, once he's getting what he wants.

Yes. Whatever happened, eventually it's over. There is a condom like on the street on the dirt, you know, with

a red condom. Yes. A red condom. Oh, you read with great attention. Anyway, she shoots him in the head

with his gun. Did she shoot him in the head while they were fighting? Right. The prosecution says it doesn't look like that. The prosecution says it looks like she shot him when he's like sleeping afterward.

Okay. So, it looks more coldblooded, right? Not self-defense. Exactly. She shoots him in the head. Okay. He's dead. And she takes off.

The cops don't find her for quite a while, like six weeks. Oh, wow. She's also in the middle of nowhere, 16 years old. She just shot a guy. She gets out of the car and she has to walk out of this weird rural pocket of Seattle that she doesn't really know. I mean, you just got a picture a 16-year-old girl dealing with what just happened in that car. She got [ __ ] by a dude she didn't want to and then she shot him in the head and now she's wandering the street.

Yeah. Oh, [ __ ] This is also someone who was abused by their father, too. So, the trauma is like

I have often wondered this. So she is abused by her dad and the sexual abuse question there is

undetermined right suspected unproven but you know she herself told me you know there she has

had sex with dudes right and I don't think she wanted to you know and you know like

prostitution or trafficking I don't think she wanted to but she was in this sort of world and she was doing it. And I have often wondered exactly what you're suggesting that

in that moment, was it all the dudes? Exactly. Was it her dad? Was it everyone?

Yes. I've wondered. I mean, I can try to put myself in the head of a 16-year-old girl. I also have been a 16-year-old girl sometimes in a pretty desperate situation. Not a great I mean, I did not have her life in any way, but I did have some pretty dark times um in those years.

Yeah. And I can imagine, yeah, life is valueless. Who gives a [ __ ] I mean, your life is dystopian. It's like life doesn't have a ton of value. It's not like, you know, you're not experiencing the great side of people and having these lovely, wonderful, loving connections. Like, it's not it's not even the same value that you that I would have.

So, interesting that you um touched on that because one thing that I learned in doing all the reporting for this book, it was a six-year process. It was you know significant amount of time. This idea of envisioning the future of goals of I want to be this someday this does not exist with many many foster kids. There are some in the book, I should say, who have gone on to great things. Yes. Um, and who but who told me, yeah, yes, it's because my foster mom said, "Think of the future. Think of who you'll be." But this idea of envisioning a future, a goal, and how to get there step by step, is really foreign.

No, it's minute to minute survival. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

Claudia, I did this show where we drove around and delivered food and we I interviewed all these kind of random people and um one of them was a homeless dude I met under the bridge. Happened to be from Michigan. As [snorts] I learned from his story, he had been in foster care his whole life in Kazoo, Michigan, in and out. And what I was so struck by was I would say like, "So, how long do you think you're going to stay?" And he's like, "I don't I don't know." Any time I asked him any question that was forward- facing or future, um, he was incapable of it to the point where I was like, does does is his frontal cortex just completely damaged? like the area of your brain that would be able to model out a potential future is is that something happened to his. So to hear you say that that's so common is interesting because that's the thing that stuck with me. I'm like I don't think this guy can make a plan whether

he's staying or not staying in LA to pivot a little and say look this book has some pretty hard truths in it. However, there are paths for repair. This can be reversed. And I saw it happen with one guy in the book, Jay. Um who I can tell you that story in a minute. And I saw it happen kind of with Maryanne.

Oh, okay. Arthur Longworth, too. Arthur is interesting, right? Arthur is so early in as you start developing this relationship with her and you're visiting her in prison and you're asking her to kind of you need her to help you understand, but she's not entirely capable of that.

She's not at all capable. Okay, great. I was trying to be nice and um you you're you're um some someone brings Arthur to your attention and here's a guy who's in prison. He murdered someone and he's older and he has become an essaist and he's like incredibly articulate about explaining the experience.

So Art was initially going to be a source for me. Help me get it. Yeah. But then the more I got to know and understand Art and his story

Yeah. Then I, oh, you're not just a source, you're a character in this book. So Art is sort of walking me through because

he's like recognizing this thing that is driving me crazy like how come all these kids in this savior system are not at all being saved? What is happening here? And I'm sort of trying to figure it out by myself on the outside, but Art from within maximum security prison has recognized the same dynamic because huge numbers of all the other inmates around him are dudes he knew in foster care or their kids.

And he even kind of started a little group of other foster kids in the prison. All these former foster youth in the prison who have serious serious sentences.

Wow. And so Art is recognizing this same phenomenon from his personal experience and that of all the people around him at the same time just independently that I'm sort of like what is this? How does this work?

So I write to Art ghosts of the previous um killer correspondence of the other book in my head like oh no oh no keep finding myself back.

Yeah believe me I had those worries. Um, but Art is not that guy at all. And I really was worried. Is Art, what is he? Is he a manipulator? Is he a sociopath? No, I don't think so.

What was he in prison for? First-degree murder. Okay. He killed a young woman in an incredibly brutal crime. Not a quick shot to the head. He stabbed her to death in a car and let her bleed out. Was really, really cold.

Wow. Cold. Yeah. Yeah. Cold. Wow. So, Art, help me understand. You help me understand all of this. But Art has written this incredible essay which is called How to Kill Someone. And it won some awards. So, it's out there online. Anybody can read it. And you know, you come to realize it's not only how how why and how he killed his victim, but how he perceives that he was sort of soul murdered by the system. How to turn someone into what he calls an animal.

Wow. He says, you know, I acted like an animal because the system raised me to be an animal. It is art who really articulates this cyclical nature that the book Words of the State is trying to get at like this creating this system pumping out kids so illquipped for productive adulthood that homelessness or incarceration are kind of the most likely outcomes.

We haven't got into addiction numbers, but they have to be astronomical. They're astronomical. Um, and poverty across the board, right? People will hear this podcast and be like, "You're not being fair and broad brush and too dark of a picture." Okay, there might be better outcomes for some people when they are taken into the system much younger

as babies and with stable placements. And there's all kinds of stuff in the book about attachment theory and connection and what that does to hormones and cortisol and how those things affect behavior.

We'll just leave it there. Yeah. But all the people who go not fair picture of foster care. I say but what about these numbers? You are not confronting the reality of these numbers. Yes.

Okay. Maybe for younger little babies who are adopted out of foster care and they have one family, maybe it's better. But I know of cases where that is the case

and weird behavioral stuff comes out when they're teenagers and one wonders. Anyway,

Art becomes a character in the book because he's a fantastic writer. Why he was important and frankly useful to me is that because prison has kind of a like a freezing or a paralyzing effect in some ways on development. And I've seen this with other guys in prison that because part of your life kind of stops.

Yeah. You're still able to touch the mind of that person who was the killer, the whatever on the street, but now you're many decades older in his case. He's been there

many decades by the time I reached out to him. At least more than three decades by the time I reached out to him. But he still can sort of touch this adolescent rage and and what it is and how it powers his actions. But he can understand it and articulate it the way an older person can because he has taught himself to be a writer despite having only a seventh grade education. So he can touch this experience but he can articulate it the as an old with the tools of an older person. This is what I needed. This is what Maryanne could not do for me. Yeah.

So Art is also just a very bright guy and had and a very um say proactive. He is deciding from prison. Okay, life sentence is what he got. And we won't say what happened to Art, but um because it's a spoiler, but he got a life sentence and he decides, all right, despite that, I'm gonna try to reach out to lawmakers, policy makers, all these people on the outside who need to understand this thing, this phenomenon, this way that this system is creating its own um is an engine like the way foster care is an engine in his mind powering the carceral system. it is pumping out future inmates

in Art's mind. Um, and I think that there's really something to that and it was the same question I was wondering about.

That doesn't mean you need to leap into conspiracy theory that like this is all so some big cabal trying to

Oh, not at all. Right. I I can see people going in that direction. It's like no, without any intention this is happening. Correct. Yeah. In fact, probably the opposite intention this is happening.

I think that most people involved with this system are entirely well-intentioned. I think that the system was founded created in the 19th century out of good intentions for what do we do for kids who have no family who can care for them. It is originally conceived you know as a saving system. It is a well-intended thing. The problem with foster care is okay in 1890 whatever right but now you know in the last 20 years we American society we have learned an enormous amount about brain development particularly youth brain development and that is the problem that foster care as a system structurally it is not aligned structurally with what we now know about what All humans need to develop in a healthy way. That is the issue that the structure of foster care despite its stated aims of permanence is really

the experience is one of impermanence. Right? You're moved around these people change. If your lawyer, your foster parent, your social worker, every your therapist, everyone's different.

Your CASA advocate different. Your co your mom WAS A CA. OH, GOOD JOB. HOW DO you know that

reporter dude? um people change in your life. It's all about impermanence. The system is not aligned. It it is it is it is structurally built around impermanence which is not helpful to to healthy brain development. So that is the thing like an inherent fault an inherent problem built into it.

Yes. So people go Claudia what should what should happen here? Right. Yeah. I'm

not a policy maker. I'm not an advocate just a writer but um but I do have a thought or two. Yeah,

please tell me also even you know in the book there are many people saying minimally than if you left every single kid in every single abusive situation that that exists currently the outcome would be better saying that there are people saying that

there are people saying the opposite right I know when my mom was a CASA uh person um yeah she said the priority is to get the kids with their family that is the pri that is the priority

regardless of what's up with the family sometimes yeah And my mom saw all these. I mean, like, there couldn't be a a harder situation society. I mean, difficult.

You're talking about leaving a kid in a house where they're going to get molested or beaten or maybe killed.

[ __ ] So, this is the thing, okay? Most kids who come into foster care, it's not because of abuse and it's not because of sexual abuse either. It's because of neglect.

It's called neglect, right? This is the the sort of majority reason on every kid's

admission form, right? So, neglect can look a lot like poverty. Kid shows up at school in the same dirty clothes for 2 weeks or never has,

you know, food at lunchtime and a teacher is going to make a phone call or kid is left at daycare, you know, the parents never show up. Somebody's going to make a phone call to CPS like what's up with this kid's

family? And if you visit the house and there's three little kids and no parents around,

you visit the house, there's no food in the refrigerator, the lights aren't on, maybe there is no house, right? Maybe they're homeless. You're not supposed to take kids from their parents because of homelessness, but happens all the time.

Yeah. And you can understand why it would. So, yes, too many kids have been taken into foster care because just because you're poor doesn't mean you don't love your kids. And maybe there are, not maybe, there surely are some parents who are on the margins, do not have the means to support their kids. And if we supported people more, families more, we wouldn't be taking their kids into foster care, right? If we helped people keep the lights on, have housing stability,

basic stuff, some basic stuff. We wouldn't be compelled to take their kids into foster care. Okay? So, yes, make the system smaller. use the savings that you're not giving to foster parents. Now for family preservation services, more mental health, substance abuse, treatment, all stuff. There are kids who cannot be safe at home.

Really quick, I want to say the number because no one would know it off the top of their head, but there's 400,000 kids in foster right now,

which is down from even a couple of years ago because everyone goes, "Oh, foster care is such a damaging system." So, we are Yes. The priority is keep them with their families

however you can. um say you did these things and but there certainly are kids who are being sexually abused or tortured at home and cannot be safe at home. Okay. So you have a smaller system that is just focused on those kids these extreme cases. You've

you've given more services. This is like a dreamy hypothetical. You you give given more services to their biological families. Okay. So some kids are staying at home more safely. The system itself is smaller now. Maybe it has 200 or 300,000 kids in it or maybe 100,000. But the system is a housing system, right? It is essentially you got a bed, you'll be fed,

right? It needs to be a healing system. It obviously needs to be conceived as a rehabilitative system because we know that every single kid in there has undergone really damaging trauma. Even if it is merely the trauma of being removed or ripped away from their biological parents who they love and forgive even for neglect, whatever, right? Even if the kid

should have never been taken into foster care and if you just help their family, right? and they love their family and maybe they'll be reunited, but that kid is in foster care and is has severe trauma from being removed and then moved around all these people that they don't connect with cuz they can't connect because they're going to be moved.

Yeah. Okay. So, that's a housing system. That's sort of a we'll keep you housed until you're 18 and then thanks, goodbye.

Yeah. That is insane. It is not working. It needs to be a rehabilitative system and not like psychotropic drugs which

have been drugged since they were little kids with this combination of like antiscychotics and anti-depressants and drugs to sleep and anti-anxiety and you know drugs [ __ ]

never these drugs were never designed for use on children and children are taking like four or five like a

cockail And that's the healing. Okay. So, no. Yeah. Yeah. And then they go and they sell drugs and people are like, "Oh, put them in jail." It's like, "What? They've been

Also, then you're 18 and you're cut off and you don't have your meds anymore." Maybe.

Exactly. You need it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Here's what I've been saying for a very long time. I want you to um evaluate this uh theory. And when you look at these numbers, I This is a fiscally responsible approach. Like if you added up what 25% of the prison population costs a year. If you added up what homelessness in LA costs in San Francisco, you're talking on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars at this point. We're spending $31 billion a year on foster care. The prison system is insane. So if you could approach Congress and just go like, "Hey, I'm here to save you $50 billion, but here's how it works. If you are unlucky enough to be born into a house that you have to be removed from, you should be then lucky enough to go to Hogwarts. I think that our foster care should be a place you die to go to with the greatest services and the best health care professionals and it it should be all

hands on deck. Let's save this group of people and let's spend a [ __ ] fortune doing it. And that is going to save us money down river. half the cost to take these incredibly unlucky kids and make them the luckiest kids immediately. Like that's to me what the approach should be. Is that flawed or impossible or

it's not flawed? And so one thing that has really surprised me. Um so in general the response to this book has been like yes this is it. This is it.

Yeah. But there are some people who have not felt that way and who have written to me, including researchers who have built their whole career on researching foster care, who have said to me, it's not that many, but it's a couple. And it has stuck stuck out to me, hey, you know, there are some kids you can't do anything for. This one researcher who, you know, is a very credible person wrote to me and said there's like 18% so you know roughly 20% of 18% of kids that are chronically criminally involved and and there's and it's too late for them.

This is not the only person who said that to me. Yeah, I am shocked. I maybe you feel that way. I I

I'm kind of offended by that attitude and I saw through the reporting in this book

that that that need not be true even with Maryanne who got this chance. I don't want to give away the end because there's actually like a narrative arc to this book. She got this chance after being sentenced and sent to adult prison when she was a teenager. adult women's prison, Washington State. There was a chance because there was a new law and it allowed for people um charged and convicted as adults when they were minors.

Yeah. To be in a youth facility until they're in their mid20s. The thinking being brain development, youth facility, more

oriented toward therapy, education, right? A more therapeutic environment. Wouldn't this be better than putting teenager directly into snake pit prison

where she falls in love with an inmate immediately 11 years older than her two doors down

in in prison. She gets this reprieve after a year in prison. She is sort of in the first cohort to experience this new law and she is sent to a youth facility even though by this point she's 20 years old. So I visited her there a lot and I saw a change. really

a clear change. I don't want to say then what happened because that is a spoiler, but I will pivot to another person in the book who his name is Jay's a foster kid in New York City. He has been kicked out or dropped out of three high schools. He lands at his fourth high school. This is a kid lugging his stuff around New York City in a garbage bag. His clothes, his food, his birth certificate. like this is his in literally a garbage bag.

He lands at his fourth high school. He's I think 17. Nobody thinks he's going to even get a high school diploma. It sure doesn't look like it. He connects with this 23-year-old youth advocate at this last chance high school. She's 23. She's not some highly trained credentialed therapist, anything like that. Her job is get the kids over the finish line. Get them to graduation. That's it.

Get them off our desk. Whatever it takes. Right. [snorts] So, this kid Jay is very gang involved. And one reason he doesn't go to school ever is cuz he's always afraid of getting jumped by a rival set. In fact, he has been jumped and nearly killed and landed in the hospital. He has also assaulted other people. He's heavily involved.

Yeah. Um he connects with this youth advocate. He explains he's this huge dude, tatted, [clears throat] massive, weeping in her office. She's 23 years old. She doesn't She's like, "Oh my god." Right.

But they connect and their connection is merely Jay coming by her office once or twice a week and they look at Google Maps and they decide a new route to school. You can go this way. You could go this way. Go this way.

That's it. Yeah, it's not something, right? It's not a deep deep thing, right? They do that nine months.

Jay gets his high school diploma. Right before this book was published, I watched him defend his dissertation and be awarded a PhD. This is a kid, right? Like, this is a kid no one thought would graduate high school. He's now a a professor on a tenure track.

He was already violent. He had been and he was able to course correct. Yeah. You're saying it's it's a possibility.

And Mary, like you it could happen. It can happen. Will it happen with every single kid? Right.

Say no to everyone because it's not going to work for every single person. Doesn't like I hate that.

Right. If it doesn't pencil out, don't bother. If it work for 10% of the kids, right? If it worked for Exactly. I'll take it. Right.

It's like AA is only 32% successful. But relative to what? Right. 0% successful.

Right. So, it's pretty [ __ ] good, right? Yeah. Look, some people, if you have no compassion for this, okay, but for you, it's better. Do you want these? Do you want people out on the street committing crimes? It affects you.

Exactly. So, Art really articulates this lack of empathy that he came out of the system with that it forces kids to not develop empathy. Um, and that's exactly what you're saying. Like, do you want that up there?

Exactly. No. Yeah. Cuz I I'll add, and this is again the thing I appreciated, is like you're not trying to paint a rosy picture of Maryanne. She She had racket. She She, you know, she gets into jail, first thing she does is clog her toilet and flood the place with piss and [ __ ] She beats some girl up that was pregnant violently. I mean, she's a handful. It's not like this is easy.

Correct. Yeah. And I think that's important also because it's it's scary and people are scared and they don't know what to do and they're like lock them away. So I also understand it's like if you're looking at 16 years old, you've done all this stuff. First time you meet her, she she's in the she's in custody for the first time and she's like I'm going to [ __ ] on the floor. I mean she you know she's she's a handful.

Yeah. But people can change. I know. Yeah. Yeah. And part of the reason she's a handful if like if it was more if it was earlier on intervention it wouldn't have gotten to this point.

Yes. Necessarily. Yes. Yes. Now look I I guess I'm not a psychiatric professional. I guess that some people maybe have inborn psychopathy. Right.

Of course. But this is a minuscule percentage. Yes. Almost not worth talking about. minuscule. So yes, some people as you're talking about what's your what's your setup, right? Right. What's your genetics? Right. Okay.

But I saw her change. Now some things happened that maybe that change is in flux, but I saw her change. I definitely know that Jay changed.

Yeah. He changed. Yeah. Um people can change. Yeah. Oh man. Uh yes. So you tell the story of Arthur, um Mon'nique, Tina. You have a lot of characters in this book and they have varying outcomes

uh with their life. As you said, he he just defended his PhD dissertation. That's

incredible. Unbelievable. He was crying when they said, "Yes, you're a doctor."

I was crying. It was amazing. It was amazing. Beautiful. It was beautiful. God, [sighs and gasps]

it was Well, okay. I'm behind all of your I I'm co-signing on your I mean, yes, if you're if you're if you can cut the thing down by half just to begin with by, you know, these neglect things that are probably uncomfortable for us to witness but far preferred to detachment and isolation. Um, and then yeah, this it needs an overhaul. The kids that do end up there, I mean, again, it's we got to we got to reward them with like a lottery ticket. It's got to I mean it's just so unfair. They deserve then the o complete opposite to rightsize the ship

and the drug thing is is pretty weird. Like just basically we're managing them by drugging them.

Yeah. It's um one flew over the cuckoo's nest. It's it's pretty creepy. But then being mad that they're drug addicts.

Okay. Again. And then to make the case for them, you're working at this place. There's 20 kids. They're violent all the time. You're taking a kid to the hospital and you're like, "Okay, well trips to the hospital or over medicating." I I don't think anyone's evil. I think it's like

you're in a bunch of terrible situations. You're picking between lesser of terrible options. And maybe the medication is the best of the lesser options.

That is what this book is saying. There's not some villain here. It is merely the structure of a system that is not aligned to what we know humans need to be healthy.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but we had a systems expert on once and he said that the the simplest o came razor thing is like whatever results you're seeing of the system that is what the system produces.

Exactly. Period. The results are the proof of what the system produces. So it's like we're just at a point with these numbers. You can't pretend it does anything but what it does.

Yeah. And just one little [snorts] one more number. Okay. So you have this roughly 50 maybe 59% of kids who age out of foster care have um serious criminal involvement by the time they are 26. Okay, that's out of that Midwest evaluation study. So 59% versus fewer than 5% some people will say 3% of kids who grow up in foster care will ever get a four-year college degree.

Three 59% versus 3%. These are the outcomes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is what the system produces.

Yeah. Exactly. Just saying. Like, hey, hey, hey, let's and and this has been back at the beginning like

this is not a secret. People know these numbers and everyone's like like nobody's that worked up about it. I guess I got worked up.

Yeah, but we have all these psychologists writing all these books on mental development and human devel. They're out there talking about it and yet we're applying it where

where? Right. Well, if you're rich. Yeah, exactly. You get all that help and spending $31 billion every year for these outcomes.

I don't know why it never occurred to me. It's like uh well we know addiction knows no boundaries just as many rich people are addicted as poor people professionals are addicted as much as blue collar you know like addiction is addiction um sexual abuse is sexual abuse all these things they don't they they have no respect for a socioeconomic level and the notion that yeah there's no rich kids in foster care.

Yeah. Are you telling me that they're not in the same situations? They are other than the neglect.

So there's one other thing that I should mention about sort of responses that are happening. Okay. Right.

So kinship care. So people have only very recently like in the past few years and I'm not talking the past 10 years. I'm talking the past three three years or so. A recognition that okay, there seems to be better outcomes if a kid is placed with someone they know, a relative or even fictive kin, which could be like a family friend or a teacher or a coach. Someone who knows the kid or knows their community is connected with them in some way. Kinship care. So it used to always be that, you know, grandma took in, you know, her grandkids, but those people never got the state money.

So they never got the money that goes to foster parents to strangers. They were just bankrupting their retirement by caring for their kin. The change is that more and more states including Washington state a lot um and nationally it is happening that you can now become licensed as a kinship provider just for your relatives. So you don't have to jump through all the hoops and all the training that

are required of sort of conventional foster parent strangers. You can just be licensed for your relative and get the state support. Yeah.

So, this is a change. Is it perfect? Probably not. Nothing is. But it is better. It is certainly a significant reform.

Yeah. And incredibly, this is the thing like, wow, our thinking is so, you know, even until pretty recently, perhaps even to this moment, there are definitely people who go, well, why would we give the kid to their grandmother? their grandmother [ __ ] up the her own daughter who is the kid's mother and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and the whole family is screwed up and blah blah blah. This has been sort of the prevailing attitude why we don't give kids why we have traditionally not given children placed children with kin because this belief of you know

they were the problem in the first place and perhaps they're thinking they're that much closer to the abuser we just took them forward they can now stop by their brother's house

right so this is what I mean like if is it a perfect solution yeah yeah yeah not necessarily it is surely better than moving the kid among strangers for years.

Yes, this is we already talked about it, but yes, this notion that we're going to wait for a perfect solution is not it. We got to we got to be happy with some improvements, you know, and we have to have an appetite for the downside we discover. Uh then we, you know, we have

and for saying this worked, this didn't work. Like I think we get so we did it and now it's too late. It's like you can change it if we see that doesn't work. Like we we're not So yeah.

Well, you have kids. Yeah. You said Yeah. And I have kids and and and when the minute you have kids, I feel like you're incredibly aware of um the luck or not luck a kid gets.

You know, you my mom always said this, like you get brought home from the hospital to a house and that's like you don't you don't pick out the windows.

You just you get brought from that hospital and you're in a situation. And I don't know why I'm gonna say this, but maybe back to art. Was any part of his explanation when I try to make peace with some of my totally amoral behavior, which I had a lot of it. The way I would justify this stuff was, "Yeah, man. It's unjust. I didn't get my fair shake. I didn't All of empathy and and interpersonal relationships, they're all built on reciprocity. So, if no one is showing you kindness and generosity, well, guess what? You don't [ __ ] show it back. You're like, "No, no, I get it.

I got to take mine and you feel I felt very justified in that at times." Like, this was unjust. So, the system is [ __ ] up, so why would I play by the rules of the system that I was I was a victim of? You have no regard for it.

Absolutely. Yeah. You're like, "Fuck this." He would absolutely say yes. Yeah. Sure. If I was that kid, I'd be saying please and thank you and showing up on time, but I didn't get that hand, so [ __ ] everyone.

He would say, "I don't understand. I guess they got it and so they know it, but I don't know how to be that way. I didn't ever learn it."

It's not as innate as we'd like to believe. He always says empathy is learned. I I wonder I think I look at my own kids and I felt like I saw empathy very very early. Yes, I do think as a social priming. So any social animal has empathy. You have to to coexist in a organization

and he did for his sister. I think you can lose it. I think it's Yes. Because again the whole reason it has it is for group cohesion and if there is no group cohesion in your life there's no there's no there's nothing for you to protect.

Somehow he kind of got it back. Well, I think the group in the prison with the other kids, you know, the other foster kids,

so they're no longer kids by this point. I think that's what happens in an AA meeting, you know, I think you're like looking around at all these people that you have a lot in common with and you start going, "Huh, this is so interesting. Why do we all have this in common? Oh, what do we all what's the overlap? There's a ton, you know?"

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Claudia, I love the book. It's gritty. It's not a It's an unflinching look at the reality of all the things that were happening.

Thank you so much. It's great. I loved it. Awesome. The book is Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care and I really really hope a lot of people read it and I really really hope a lot of us start caring about this. Um myself included. I was talking to my wife about it while reading it and we're both like, "Damn, [ __ ] me. We got to somehow use our

I [snorts] know. That's how I feel. We got to do something, you know. Yeah. Thanks for reading.

Yeah, I loved it. I loved it. Thanks for coming on. This is great. Can't wait for you to come back with your other your next book.

I have some ideas. Okay, good. Good. All right. Thank you so much, Claudia. Thank you so much.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Claudia Rowe (on the foster care system) | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"?

Dax Shepard (Host), Claudia Rowe (Guest).

What is "Claudia Rowe (on the foster care system) | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard" about?

Claudia Rowe discusses her experiences and insights regarding the foster care system, highlighting the challenges faced by children in care and the impact of systemic issues on their lives. Throughout the conversation, she reflects on her personal journey and the transformative power of storytelling in advocating for change within the system.

What is mentioned in this Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard episode?

12 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care, The Spider and the Fly, Arthur Longworth, New York Times, Hudson Valley, Pikipsy Journal. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Claudia Rowe (on the foster care system) | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"?

The episode runs 1 h 28 min; the transcript is about 16,018 words in 357 timestamped sections.

More from Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 5, 2026.