My Child Is Incarcerated. One Second in This Unjust System Is Too Much.
Esther and Rosendo Hernández visit with their son Juan Hernández at Lawrence Correctional Center in 2020 right before the pandemic when the Illinois Department of Corrections shut down visits.
Courtesy of Lawrence Correctional Center
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For several years, I have met weekly with a remarkable group of mothers and one father who, like me, are fighting for the release of their adult children from Chicago-area prisons. We call ourselves the Mothers of the Kidnapped. My new sisters and brother, all in a group no parent wants to join, speak powerfully to the loss of their children and to the agony of being caught up in a police and trial process that actively works against us and the supposed rights of our children to access a transparent and even-handed legal system.