Sylvia A. Harvey

About Sylvia A. Harvey

Sylvia A. Harvey, widely known as SAH, is an award-winning journalist, speaker, and author of The Shadow System: Mass Incarceration and the American Family (Bold Type Books, 2020). Her work on race, class, policy, and incarceration has appeared in The Nation, Elle, Politico, Vox, The Marshall Project, The Root, VQR, and more. NPR, WBAI, Embodied WUNC, Cheddar News, and others, have featured her commentary on the criminal legal system. SAH is a dynamic speaker, known to light up any conference, university, or corporate stage with her fierce storytelling. Her work is being used in university coursework and has been cited by federal lawmakers calling for criminal justice reform. SAH’s research and reporting investigate the way culture, politics, history, public health, policy, and economics affect our lives. She focuses on how some of our most important social institutions – the criminal legal system, the child welfare system, and the education system – exacerbate the collateral effects of mass incarceration on families and communities. The Oakland native earned a BA in sociology from Columbia University, where her research experience advanced her commitment to understanding inequality, and fueled her desire to communicate her work beyond the academy. Leveraging her sociological training to examine social inequalities, she subsequently pursued graduate training in journalism at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Her work has been supported by grants and fellowships from Type Media Center, the Logan Nonfiction Program at the Carey Institute for Global Good, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, Poynter Institute, and the Alicia Patterson Foundation. In 2023, SAH was selected as part of the cohort for the Data-Driven Reporting Project, a collaboration between Medill and the Google News Initiative, to embark on an investigative data project that examined the race of victim effect in murder convictions. She is a 20••••25 O\'Brien Fellow in Public Service Journalism examining Second Look legislation. She received a National Headliner Award and a National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Salute to Excellence award. Her book, The Shadow System, was a finalist for the Media for a Just Society Awards. SAH lives in New York City. SAH welcomes collaboration, dialogue, and inquiries, so feel free to reach out. Learn more on her website, and connect with her on social media as @Ms_SAH. For speaking invitations, please contact Rolisa Tutwyler of CCMNT Speakers.

Experience

1. Author

   Hachette Book Group

   Apr 2020 — Present · NY, US

   Reported and wrote, The Shadow System: Mass Incarceration and the American family (Bold Type Books, 2020), a searing exposé of the effects of the mass incarceration crisis on families — including the 2.7 million American children who have a parent locked up. The Shadow System follows the fears, challenges, and small victories of three families struggling to live within the confines of a brutal system. In Florida, a young father tries to maintain a relationship with his daughter despite a sentence of life without 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. In Mississippi, a wife steels herself for her husband’s thirty-ninth year in prison and does her best to keep their sons close.

Education

• Columbia University

  B.A.

• Columbia University - Graduate School of Journalism

  M.S.