CHICAGO -- It's been two months since 13-year-old Malik was able to give his mom a hug. He recently got the rare opportunity, but first he had to travel to a strip mall parking lot on Chicago's South Side, ride a bus for nearly three hours and then pass through security at the Decatur Correctional Facility in downstate Illinois.

"The hardest thing is not talking to her. She was a very funny person," Malik said of his mom, Latonya, whose legal representatives asked that her last name not be used to protect her safety. Latonya has been an inmate at Decatur for two years.

"I miss her jokes, her laughs," said Malik, who was dressed in a crisp white shirt and a small gold cross necklace for his visit on Saturday. "I miss everything about her."

Malik is among the more than 2.7 million American children with a parent in prison, according to the most recent Pew Charitable Trust figures. Put another way: If all of the nation's children with an incarcerated parent were a city, it would be the third-largest in the U.S.

Though nearly 1 in 28 American kids have a parent in jail, the problems facing separated families remain at best misunderstood and at worst ignored.

Despite perceptions about convicts -- especially incarcerated mothers -- Malik said his mom and most of the people at Decatur are not bad people.

But convincing prospective employers, landlords and policymakers of that fact is not so easy.

Even the very reunification ride program that enabled Malik -- and several dozen children ranging from toddlers to teenagers -- to visit their mothers this weekend has been largely forgotten by lawmakers during Illinois' 10-month budget impasse.

Keeping mothers in touch with their families during incarceration is key to reducing recidivism and ensuring they can be successful and productive upon release, according to Collete Payne, a community organizer with Cabrini-Green Legal Aid, which is among the groups that facilitated the ride.

"I know for a fact, when you send women to jail, it divides the family," Payne said. "It hurts the whole community."