At the end of last month, Rosa Jimenez was finally released after almost 18 years behind bars for a tragic accident that was erroneously deemed to be a crime.
The next day she was reunited with her children Brenda, who was just 1 year old when her mother was wrongly convicted, and Aiden, who was born in jail and taken from Rosa immediately after his birth. “This was the first time I touched my son since he was born,” she said. Brenda and Aiden went to live with foster parents and Rosa’s contact with her children was severely restricted throughout her incarceration.
According to the Prison Policy Initiative, more than 60% of women in prison have children under the age of 18 and almost 80% of women in jail are mothers, just like Rosa.
A few days after her release, Rosa was able to be at Brenda’s wedding — one of many major life events that for so long, she feared she would miss out on.
Rosa Jimenez and her daughter Brenda on her wedding day. (Image: Vanessa Potkin)
Rosa spent the morning going with Brenda to get her makeup done and to prepare for her small outdoor wedding. “She looked like a little princess. I was so excited to be there for the biggest day of her life,” Rosa said.
Rosa is now rebuilding her life and her relationship with her children. She’s also focused on staying healthy and getting treatment for her advanced Stage 4 kidney disease for which she will need a transplant. She hopes to get an apartment large enough for her kids, who live two hours away, to come and stay with her. Once she gets settled in, she also wants to resume the braille work she was doing in prison and start helping others in her community and women who are still incarcerated.
The Innocence Project exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. www.innocenceproject.org
