As Women’s History Month comes to an end it’s important to recognize that, from media attention to medical care to navigating motherhood, women in the justice system face unique challenges that are often overlooked.
Take Rosa Jimenez for example. Rosa was the loving mother of a 1-year-old girl named Brenda and seven months pregnant with her son, Emanuel, when a 21-month-old she regularly babysat and loved like her own child, accidentally choked on paper towels and was rushed to the hospital. He tragically died three months later. It was a horrible accident, but police were quick to arrest Rosa. She spent 17 years behind bars for something she didn’t do and was finally released earlier this year when a judge agreed that “there was no crime committed.”
Rosa Jimenez in Austin, Texas, on March 4, 2021. (Image: Mary Kang for the Innocence Project)
Almost 73% of women exonerated since 1989 were wrongfully convicted of crimes that never happened — including events determined to be accidents, deaths by suicide, and crimes that were fabricated.
The Innocence Project exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. www.innocenceproject.org
