Description
Book SynopsisThe public guardian of Cook County, Illinois, charges that the child welfare bureaucracy, designed to help children, is instead helping to destroy them. Murphy explains the facts and failures of the child welfare system—and offers solutions—better than any expert I've ever read on the subject....A first-rate read—poignant and instructive. —Edward I. Koch
Trade ReviewA splendid book. -- Msgr. John Egan, DePaul University
Honest and self-reflective...written with wit and great knowledge. -- Boris M. Astrachan, M.D., Chairman Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago
Wasted is a first-rate read—poignant and instructive. -- Edward I. Koch, Former Mayor, New York City
Insightful and passionate...a book about responsibility and of how shirking it leads to social catastrophe. -- Ellis Cose, Author of Color-Blind and The Rage of a Privileged Class
A powerful indictment of the child welfare system...its message deserves a broad hearing among those who care about our society's children. -- Elizabeth Bartholet, "professor of law, Harvard Law School
Table of ContentsPart 1 Acknowledgements 7 Part 2 Foreword 13 Part 3 A Third World Initiation 27 Part 4 Learning the System 37 Part 5 Preserving Families, Killing Children 58 Part 6 The Underclass 85 Part 7 The Confidentiality Game 113 Part 8 New Realities 129 Part 9 Wrong Race, Wrong Place 147 Part 10 Orphans in a Strom 162 Part 11 Ideology and Reality 174 Part 12 Index 185
