It’s not often that I get to travel for work but in mid-December, I was very fortunate to attend the three-day Second Chance Act Conference 2024 in Philadelphia, PA where I and 800 people representing various organizations from across the nation came together to celebrate 15 years of the Act’s passage while learning and sharing the latest practices in the field of reentry. Signed into law on April 9, 2008, by former President George W. Bush, the Second Chance Act supports organizations like CPA to “reduce recidivism and improve outcomes for people returning from state and federal prisons, local jails, and juvenile facilities.” The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs (OJP) awards grants for a host of reentry services and served as a host and sponsor of the conference, along with the National Reentry Resource Center and the Council of State Governments Justice Center.
To say this was a jampacked full-of-information conference is an understatement. Each day there were morning and afternoon main plenaries and some 69 breakout sessions to choose from and take part. Day One started with the main plenary, “Building Human-Centered Reentry Systems and Creating a Whole-of-Government Approach,” which set the tone for the conference as it really opened one’s eyes to what everyone was here to do, even though each agency may have different policies and procedures, we are all united in obtaining the same goal.
I chose to follow that up with the Break-Out session, “The Importance of Effective Corrections and Community-Based Organization Relationships.” While each session includes a panel of experienced practitioners, it’s always interesting to hear how other states manage their programs yet how advanced Connecticut is when it comes to reentry services, and I share this from what I heard and in my conversations with others. The first day ended with a Poetry Performance and Fireside chat with Ian Manuel, a formally incarcerated man who wrote the book, “My Time will Come – A Memoir of Crime, Punishment, Hope and Redemption.” I am always intrigued by the experiences of those individuals who are justice impacted, and it was simply amazing to listen to Manuel’s story and poetry.
Other sessions I attended included, “Employer Engagement and Partnerships: Addressing Stigma and Bias in Employment for People with Criminal Records.” This was very interesting but also revealing, in that this issue is not common to just Connecticut. Some states make it a priority to partner with employers to create employment opportunities for individuals well before release to help ensure success, which is great.
We tend to struggle with that here in Connecticut including securing the identification participants need to work, and with getting referrals 90 days before individuals are released from prison, but we have been doing a better job working through that. However, partnerships with companies like Pursuit Aerospace and CT Department of Correction help participants in our own work release program as they interview individuals and set up a career path for them well before reentering the community, which makes for a smooth transition to employment.
Additional workshops I took part in included “Beyond Recidivism: Developing Holistic Metrics of Successful Reintegration,” and “Zero Returns to Homelessness: From Vision to Action Through Cross-System Collaboration.” Each of these sessions imparted good information and current insights to bring back to my team at the Hartford Reentry Welcome Center and deliver the best-in-practice programmatic services to our participants. One of the takeaways many conference attendees spoke about was the goal for more states to join Reentry2030, a movement led by The Council of State Governments Justice Center focused on driving meaningful reforms to support individuals returning to their communities after incarceration. I am hoping that Connecticut too will join Reentry2030 and demonstrate its commitment to the work we do that makes communities stronger and safer.