Dorothy Roberts, a University of Pennsylvania law professor and pioneering scholar of race, gender, and the law, argues that America's child welfare system should be understood as a 'family policing system' that operates as an arm of state control over Black families. Drawing on decades of research, Roberts documents how child protective services disproportionately investigates, separates, and terminates the parental rights of Black families, perpetuating rather than addressing the effects of poverty and structural racism. The book traces the history of child welfare from its origins in removing children from immigrant and Black families deemed unfit through the current foster care system that warehouses hundreds of thousands of children. Roberts examines how mandatory reporting laws drafted after high-profile abuse cases created a surveillance apparatus focused on poor families of color, while wealthy white families receive privacy and support services. She challenges the assumption that more intervention equals better child protection, documenting the harms of family separation including abuse within foster care, disrupted education and relationships, and lifelong trauma. Roberts argues for abolishing the current system and replacing it with support for families struggling with poverty rather than punishment for the poor. A powerful work that will transform how readers understand the relationship between family, state, and race in America.