By Kapish Kalita
LOS ANGELES, CA- The Los Angeles Regional Reentry Partnership (LARRP), an organization dedicated to the assistance of prisoner reentry in LA, said this week it and “dozens of reentry service partners” will be celebrating “Second Chance Month” this April, with resource fairs, job opportunities and recognition of “our many members who have beat the odds and successfully returned to our communities after incarceration.”
Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis noted Second Chance Month would “celebrate the efforts of JCOD [Justice Care & Opportunities Dept], the county, and community-based organizations that provide robust services.”
The celebration of these second chances is significant, as noted by LARRP Steering Committee Member Maria Alexander.
Alexander said, “Without a second chance and frankly many more, I would be incarcerated or homeless and my children would be without a mother. Second chances restore us to dignity, create safer communities, reunite families and is the humane thing to do.”
LARRP said “the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world” through a “complex system of incarceration utilizing thousands of facilities, which hold over 1.9 million people at a system-wide cost of at least $182 billion each year.”
Added LARRP, “95 percent of prisoners will be released this period of ‘reentry’ into the community after incarceration which is critical to reducing recidivism (rearrest or incarceration) and to ensuring the long-term success of the returning individual.”
“California has the largest state prison system in the country” with “Los Angeles having the largest jail in the world,” and its “communities” impacted by both the exodus of people into the carceral systems and their eventual return” with “[t]housands of Angelenos coming home from incarceration every year living with the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction, with often lifelong barriers to employment, housing, family reunification and… education opportunities,” said LARRP.
The importance of reentry and second chances within Los Angeles County led to the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors March 19 proclaiming April 2024 as Second Chance Month in Los Angeles County, said LARRP.
The program added the date will “help individuals, communities, and agencies across the country recognize the importance of providing meaningful opportunities for reducing recidivism, fostering redemption, improving outcomes, and facilitating healing for the justice-involved population through reentry programs, culturally specific services, restorative justice, and trauma-informed care.”
