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TIhis Article analyzes how the US prison and foster care systems work togeth black mothers in the service of preserving race, gender, and class inequality in age. The intersection of these systems is only one example of many forms of< that overlap and converge in the lives of poor women of color. I examine t1 overlap between the prison and foster care populations, the simultaneous explo systems in recent decades, the injuries that each system inflicts on black c< and the way in which their intersection in the lives of black mothers helps t social inequality. I hope to elucidate how state mechanisms of surveillance and function jointly to penalize the most marginalized women in our society wl them for their own disadvantaged positions.