The various ways devised by States to help children in need can be shown in many instances to be characterized by excessive and insensitive intervention in the lives of children and their families while offering under the rubric of parens patriae poor substitutes for parental care. The abuse and profiteering of foster home care can be documented, and confinement in public institutions frequently is accompanied by physical abuse, the excessive use of drugs to tranquilize residents, and a lack of programs that encourage positive personality and skill development. The juvenile justice system has often trampled on children's rights and shown little concern for how dispositions are implemented. While deinstitutionalization promised to liberate juveniles from the degradations of institutional life, many of the community-based alternatives have failed to provide programs of high quality, often due to imprecise standards associated with licensing procedures. The underlying reasons for shoddy and abusive child care under public sponsorship are the lack of a national children's policy and a strong bias against families caught up in the child welfare and foster care systems. The model of child and family care provided by Sweden is also appropriate for the United States. In Sweden, the government functions primarily to serve people, not the conservative voice of corporate interests, and the Swedish people give top priority to meeting children's needs. In the United States, corporate interests dominate political and governmental functions. A subject index is provided.