ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the narrative of Joanetta Smith, a mother of five who spent four years in prison on drug charges. Joanetta’s five grown children tell their stories in chapter 3.
The following narratives are interrogations of power. They reveal a family that deserved not help but a chance-in a word, justice. As Nancy Campbell writes, “Women who use illicit drugs do not need pity, compassion, life skills or social services designed to help them better adjust to the worlds they inhabit. They need different worlds to inhabit.”2 The following is Joanetta’s description of the world she inhabited as a child.
