Last year, The Chicago Reporter launched an investigation revealing gaps in supportive services -- from counseling to financial assistance -- for some 90,000 Illinois children whose parents are behind bars. One of the most personally devastating holes was the lack of contact between the incarcerated and their children, a majority of whom live at least a three hours away by car from where their parents are locked up. As The Reporter noted, many are starting to use alternatives to travel, like a Lutheran Social Services Program that helps inmates record messages to their children. They revealed the deep connections that come of the simple communication:

“It really don’t matter what book I read to them, they love it to death,” said [inmate Rodney] Strohmayer. His 4-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son in Sterling, Ill., have been getting tapes for the past four months. His daughter walks around all day and night, “playing this tape over and over again,” Strohmayer said. This time they will get Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham.”

The program doesn’t just help the children; it has had a profound effect on Strohmayer himself. His incarceration helped him understand how much his children mean to him, and knowing that he has a family to go home to makes it easier.

While lawmakers still have a long way to go in addressing the problems exposed by The Reporter, a key piece of legislation (HB1995) that could serve as a lifeline for those families is making steady progress. The bill, which was shepherded through the House earlier this month by State Rep. Karen Yarborough (D-Maywood) and is now sponsored by Chicago Democrat Sen. William Delgado, would require the Department of Corrections to create a video conferencing pilot program. The hope is that over the next two years, the program will help quantify the impact of keeping inmates engaged with the outside world. "We have to make our criminal justice system more than a warehouse with a revolving door," Yarborough said at a press conference highlighting the legislation yesterday.

"Then [inmates] see what they are coming home to," State Rep. Will Davis (D-Homewood) added, "to their children and other positive things." Davis' comments took an interesting turn when he touted the video conferencing system as one way to control the profit motives for growing the state's prison population. "Those people who live in those towns want them to come because that [fills] hotels and restaurants," Davis said. "We understand that this is capitalism and this is the way of America. There's no reason they should be built on the backs of people unfortunately in this situation." Watch:

While the pilot is certainly a step in the right direction, a new report by the Council of State Governments' Justice Center highlights dozens of additional reforms that states ought to consider to strengthen parent-child relationships in an effort to break the cycle of recidivism. Go read the whole thing here (PDF).