Skip to content
Responsive image
Vendor
Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories

THE SHADOW SYSTEM

Sylvia A. Harvey

Mass Incarceration and the American Family

A searing expose of the effects of mass incarceration on the families of those locked up - including the 2.7 million American children who have a parent in jail - told through the stories of three families struggling to live the best lives they can within the confines of a brutal system.
Harvey reveals a shadow system of laws and regulations enacted to dehumanize the incarcerated and profit off their families - from mandatory sentencing laws, to restrictions on prison visitation, to charges of up to $24.95 for a 15-minute phone call.
Harvey follows the fears, challenges, and small victories of three families. Along the way, Harvey illustrates how families navigate the different regulations, programs, and economic costs, learning to cope (or not) with impossible stakes.

Sylvia A. Harvey is a journalist and reporting fellow with Type Investigations at Type Media Center who reports at the intersection of race, gender, and policy. She is the recipient of a Logan Non- Fiction Residency from The Carey Institute for Global Good, a National Headliner Award recipient, and a National Association of Black Journalists, NABJ, Salute to Excellence awardee. She lives in New York City.
Available products
Book

Published 2020-04-07 by Bold Type Books

Comments

... an unflinching investigation of the vast collateral damage falling on the prisoners' families... Harvey goes behind today's headlines of prison riots, inmate and officer casualties and widespread corruption. She makes it personal, weaving the paths of three families through time, crime and, seemingly inevitably, prison. Implacable poverty, addictions, blatant racism and poor legal representation coalesce to bear down on the generations of families fractured by incarceration. Read more...

My brother was imprisoned for 30 years. I know firsthand just how devastating the impact of imprisonment is on a family. Sylvia A. Harvey's The Shadow System is an emotionally powerful and devastating analysis of how the prison system punishes and profits from families caught in its clutches. This urgent book makes us aware that some of the heaviest costs of incarceration are borne by children and families.

America's mass incarceration system is a monster producing limitless stories about the bodies it has devoured and the bones it has spat out. But, for the first time, Sylvia A. Harvey chronicles the collateral damage of this ravenous injustice industry by giving voice to the heartbreaking stories of the families that constitute its collateral damage.

Sylvia A. Harvey has written a piece for The Nation about the impact incarceration has on parental rights. Read more...

Journalist Sylvia A. Harvey presents this urgent and compassionate call for change in the oppressive system of mass incarceration in the US.

A solid combination of research, compassion, and anger that sheds light on a highly flawed system.

Sylvia A. Harvey contributed a piece to the Type Investigations Blog on the response of rage and reform in the wake of George Floyd's murder. Read more...

Author's piece: The Toll Mass Incarceration Takes on Families - When someone is imprisoned, we often forget who gets left behind. But for those with family members behind bars, the effects of incarceration can be detrimental. Read more...

Q&A: Harvey sat down with Prism to discuss her book The Shadow System Read more...