The Shadow System

A searing expose of the effects of the mass incarceration crisis on families-including the 2.7 million American children who have a parent locked up.

In The Shadow System, award-winning journalist Sylvia A. Harvey follows the fears, challenges, and small victories of three families struggling to live within the confines of a brutal system.

In Florida, a 20-year-old black man tries to maintain a relationship with his precocious daughter despite a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. In Kentucky, where the opioid epidemic has led to the increased incarceration of women, many of whom are white, one mother fights for custody of her children and learns what it means to be labelled a felon. In Mississippi, a wife steels herself for her husband's 39th year in prison and does her best to keep their sons close.

Through these stories, 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 astronomical charges for brief phone calls.

The Shadow System is an eye-opening account of the way incarceration has impacted generations of American families, and delivers a galvanizing clarion call to fix this broken system.