Introduction -- Collateral damage in the war on drugs -- Joanetta's world -- Lost childhood : a family narrative -- Family narratives of survival and sorrow : Bell, Melvanie, Nadia, and Louella -- Expendable bodies, racialized policies -- Incarceration : theater of terror -- Teen mothers and the infants who saved them -- Children in the other America -- Gonna rise : Pam's story -- Eye on the prize : theorizing change -- What is to be done in the meantime? -- Beating the odds -- Addendum: Support programs for families of incarcerated mothers.