The Radio Show That Reunited Inmates and Families [TheMarshallProject.org]
It was 11 o’clock on a Friday night in mid-December and Lessie Gardner had already taken a bus 100 miles from her home in Washington, D.C., to the Richmond, Va., Greyhound station. Soon she would board a 15-passenger van for a seven-hour drive to a small town near the Kentucky border. Her ultimate destination was a supermax state prison called Red Onion. It holds 800 inmates, one of whom was her son, Michael. She had not seen him in 15 years. Their prolonged separation is a familiar story to...