The Second Chance Act (SCA) is federal legislation designed to improve outcomes for people returning to the community from prisons and jails. This is Part IV of a four-part blog series. (
Read Part I,
Read Part II,
Read Part III)
At the end of 2006, I left my position at the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments and moved across the country, where I came to work at Building Changes (then AIDS Housing of Washington), in part because I had admired the agency's publication, From Locked Up to Locked Out: Creating and Implementing Post-release Housing for Ex-prisoners. My work branched out into general homelessness and HIV housing primarily, but I continued to monitor the Second Chance Act (SCA), which finally passed and was signed into law in April 2008. A major battle had been
The Second Chance Act (SCA) is federal legislation designed to improve outcomes for people returning to the community from prisons and jails. This is Part III of a four-part blog series. (Read Part I, Read Part II)
Looking back, it was possible to see the problem as a result which should have been predictable, of misguided policies enacted in agencies and offices across the United States during the previous decades. Mandatory minimums, the elimination of prison programming, and the shuttering of mental hospitals, without corresponding investment in community treatment and services, led to the release of many offenders with little hope and few options for finding work and becoming contributing members of society. Years of "tough-on-crime" speechifying came home to roost. Pennsylvania State
The Second Chance Act (SCA) is federal legislation designed to improve outcomes for people returning to the community from prisons and jails. This is Part II of a four-part blog series. (
Read Part I) I was working in an office that is now called the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments (a national membership organization of elected and appointed officials) when I first began hearing from administrators of these diverse organizations. They were meeting as members of a "Reentry Policy Council" convened by CSG to hammer out consensus-based recommendations to address post-incarceration challenges at a community level. These committed men and women from very different walks of life and points on the political spectrum discussed hundreds of ideas and examples to identify the most
The U.S. Department of Justice plans to release a solicitation for Second Chance Act (SCA) grants to state and local government on March 23, 2009, with applications due by May 21, 2009. A solicitation for grants to nonprofit organizations is expected to be released early in 2009 as well. Additional information about the SCA, including fact sheets about the sections authorizing both types of grants, are available from the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments.
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If you're in Washington State and are considering applying for SCA funding,
we'd like to hear from you! Please contact Katherine Cortes, Community Planner, at Building
On November 3rd, I went to a public meeting on "Public Safety in Peril," where the elected heads of the four county criminal justice agencies (sheriff's office, superior and district courts, and the prosecutor's office) presented on how proposed county budget cuts (11.4% across the four agencies) would wreak havoc on their work.
They were being required to cut nearly all discretionary programs, even cost-saving investments like mental health court and drug court, which leverages state funding. The final cuts that County Executive Ron Sims announced when he sent his budget to the County Council included 10-day furloughs for county agencies -- which at least in the case of the Superior (criminal) Court has been ruled illegal by the State Superior Court according to the state Constitution.
In
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