Family Analysis: A Fragile Family

It should be noted that not all of law enforcement has condemned Frances and Luis. After the children were taken into county custody, several officers made a point of approaching Frances to tell her how sorry they were to hear about the kids, that they knew she was a good mother, and to call on them if they could help in any way. One officer even offered to take Bola on a ride-along in a police car, and Frances has agreed. "I don’t want him to start hating all cops because of what he’s been through," she said.

The obstacles the Aguilars have faced — and still face — are part of a larger story, which is the tendency on the part of the police, employers, fellow citizens and many of our state laws to criminalize parolees long after their sentences have been served. At the same time, we saddle them with a parole system that is so woefully ineffective in aiding its clients that a 2003 Little Hoover Commission report pronounced it a "billion-dollar failure." As a result, nearly 70 percent of those released from California -prisons end up back behind bars within the first 18 months — three-quarters of them for comparatively minor parole violations.

In the end, this is what makes the Aguilars’ story all the more remarkable. Despite the formidable barriers, and their own less-than-stellar pasts, despite the constant police attention, the angry neighbors, the falsified evidence, the unwarranted jail time, the deaths of co-workers, the unrelenting financial stress, the temporary removal of their kids . . . Frances and Luis are still moving forward, still optimistic, still determined to create some kind of new and decent future for themselves.

Whether they are able to accomplish these most basic of goals is a chapter to be written another day.

To read Celeste Fremon's concluding chapter of "An American Family" click here.