Latest news with #secondchances
Forbes
7 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
The Prosecutor Who Pioneered A New Path Home From Prison
Hillary Blout Hillary Blout founded For The People in 2019 to work with prosecutors to safely bring people home from prison, reuniting families and strengthening communities. Here, we discuss why pathways for second chances are important and how her team secured AB 2942—the first Prosecutor-Initiated Resentencing law in the United States. Michael Zakaras: Hillary, let's go back to the beginning. Why did you become a prosecutor, and what did you discover about the role? Hillary Blout: Being from a community that experienced violence and crime, I thought there was value in becoming a prosecutor who treated everybody fairly. After all, prosecutors are the most powerful actors in our justice system. They decide if someone should be charged with a crime, and recommend how long they should go to prison. Later in my career, as I worked with organizations addressing the root causes of incarceration, I realized something: for prosecutors, a case ends at sentencing, but that's just the beginning for each of the nearly 2 million people behind bars. How could I be part of a system that sends all these people to prison without wondering what happens after the gavel strikes? My job was about public safety, but I came to see that we're not getting safer communities by keeping rehabilitated people in prison. Plus, it's costly. In California, taxpayers spend over $130,000 per year to incarcerate each person. Zakaras: Seeing the broader picture, what did you do next? Blout: I pivoted to working on statewide reform and learned from leaders who had been doing this work long before me. Still, I couldn't shake the idea that prosecutors could contribute to system-wide innovations if given the chance. I searched for laws allowing prosecutors to revisit past sentences in the interest of justice, but found nothing. The very people who'd asked for long sentences had no authority to revisit them—even as sentencing norms evolved over the past 30 years. Zakaras: So you envisioned a different way forward. Tell us more. Blout: Yes. I approached fellow prosecutors asking, 'If we had a law allowing you to revisit past sentences at your discretion, would you use it?" They said yes, that sounded reasonable, and this became my starting point—getting a law passed. So in 2019, AB 2942 became the first law of its kind in the country. We've since passed this law or rule in six states, Utah being the latest. What I've learned along the way is that our justice system values 'finality' above all. So what some saw as a 'small legislative fix" created questions about the overall design of our justice system, ultimately offering a new idea for updating and improving it. Zakaras: With implications for millions, we might add. Stepping back for a minute, why are there so many harsh sentences? Blout: Starting in the late 1970s and peaking in the 1990s, 'tough on crime' and 'war on drugs" policies took hold. Legislatures passed more laws enabling longer prison sentences. Prosecutors from that era tell me they were instructed to 'get the max," referring to maximum sentences, of course, and the 1994 Crime Bill incentivized prison construction with federal funding. Fast forward to today: now we see Republicans from conservative states talking about reentry programs. Over time, we've realized that in the majority of cases, keeping people in prison longer yields diminishing returns. Once rehabilitated, people should return to their communities as contributing taxpayers, parents, caregivers, and neighbors. And coming back to costs, we can also divert some of the $80B spent annually on incarceration to preventative measures that support mental health, housing, education, and recovery from substance use. Zakaras: What might a different justice system look like? Blout: The system historically relied on indeterminate sentences, 'life' or 'virtual life' sentences, which led to very low rates of release. Prison should be what we resort to after exhausting all other viable options such as diversion, jail, or workplace reentry programs. We should be working to get people ready to return home, not working to keep them inside forever. With over 600,000 people leaving prison every year and recidivism rates between 40–70%, a system that prioritizes dignity and rehabilitation would make our communities healthier—and cost less. Zakaras: You started your organization, For The People, in 2019. How does it support prosecutors involved in resentencing? Blout: First, we help pass laws that enable prosecutors to revisit past sentences. Then, we support implementation of these laws. We help prosecutors, prison officials, and others launch resentencing units to find people who are unnecessarily incarcerated. We provide technical support, analyze data, and help identify cases that fit their criteria. We also interface with incarcerated people and families to understand their stories—their childhood, what led to their crime, what they've done since incarceration, and their future plans. Prosecutors have to feel confident when they ask a court to release someone, so we apply our tested methodology, working together to find people who are ready to come home. Once people are home, we walk alongside them and help them access key services like job training, housing, and cash stipends so they can thrive. Zakaras: How do you help prosecutors see the broader implications of their decisions, including for public safety? Blout: Recently, we brought partner prosecutors to one of the largest women's prisons in the world. They heard about people's pathways to incarceration and the consistent themes of traumatic abuse, unstable homes, foster care, role models of violence, and gangs. The humility emerges when a prosecutor says, 'I can't say that I wouldn't have done the exact same thing you did, if my circumstances were the same. How then can I cast judgment on whether you're good or bad?' This humility is where growth happens. Zakaras: And this kind of realization has ripple effects through the system, no doubt. Blout: Right. The next phase is exploring how this work transforms the justice system as a whole. Is it changing how prosecutors approach a defendant in the courtroom? Are they rethinking prison versus diversion programs? We've had prosecutors tell us, 'I was in the courtroom, and the person in front of me reminded me of someone we resentenced. It had me thinking differently.' We want to measure what 'differently' means in practice. We are also focusing on tech innovations that can help prosecutors look back more efficiently. We've partnered with data scientists at UC-Berkeley to develop a tech tool that optimizes the initial phase of the case review process. And we're working to better understand how resentencing plays out across factors like race and gender—especially for women, who are often overlooked in the criminal justice system. Zakaras: Last question, Hillary. In our hyper-polarized times, how do you maintain bipartisan support and bring everyone along with the change? Blout: As a prosecutor, I worked with colleagues across the political spectrum and on different sides of the courtroom. We could agree to disagree respectfully. When starting this work, I knew we needed diverse support. One of California's most hardcore prosecutors told me, 'I support this law. We may not agree on other things, Hillary, but on this, I agree.' So we try to build a big tent. It's okay if we don't agree on everything, but very often, there is one thing we can agree on: there are people in prison who are simply ready to come home. Hillary Blout is an Ashoka Fellow. You can read more about her here. This interview has been edited and condensed by Ashoka.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Jordan Brand's Larry Miller Redefines Second Chances For Formerly Incarcerated Through A Workforce And Education Initiative
Chairman of the Jordan brand Larry Miller announced a new initiative that gives second chances to formerly incarcerated persons with criminal pasts–just like him. With the help of his daughter, Laila Lacy, Miller launched the Justice and Upward Mobility Project also known as JUMP to push the formerly incarcerated to the top of hiring managers and chief human resources officers' pool of resumes. Known as a highly ignored demographic, Miller is using his own story of being rejected by then-Big Eight public accounting firm Arthur Andersen when he told the hiring manager the truth about his past. Years prior, Miller had spent time in a juvenile correction center for his role in the death of another teenager that he mistakenly thought was from a rival gang. After fighting for years to turn his life around, Miller was concerned his secret would get out. 'Every day I'm worried that somehow the story is going to get out and it's going to destroy everything that I had built up to that point,' he remembered while speaking at Fortune's Workplace Innovation Summit. The work of JUMP is targeted at correcting this wrong while living in digital days, making it harder for the past to be hidden. Supported by corporate partners like NBCUniversal, Cisco, Jobs for the Future, and the Corporate Coalition of Chicago, according to Forbes, the initiative focuses on four pillars of education and employment, advocacy and policy, media and narrative, and coalition building. The first pillar of education and employment focuses on creating workforce development programs that showcase opportunities to youths and adults still tied up in the justice system. Data from the Harvard Business Review showed persons that once spent time behind bars have a 77% of returning between two and three years — but not without a trade. The number drops to 30% if that formerly incarcerated person learns a skill and decreases more to six percent if they obtain a bachelor's degree. While encouraging participants to foster relationships with employers in the sports, entertainment, and business fields, Miller's JUMP is committed to working with policymakers at the local, state, and federal level in effort to curate supportive legislation geared toward education and workforce development. It will also help limit barriers for people with arrest records to gain employment, hence giving second chances to those labeled with a negative perception. To the former Portland Trailblazer president, the data proves that there is a space for the formerly imprisoned to thrive. 'To me, that's a clear indication that if people are able to learn a trade, get an education—do something that allows them to rebuild their life, take care of their families, and get back to their communities, people don't go back to jail,' he said. 'That should be the goal.' RELATED CONTENT: Jordan Brand Unveils Jordan Melo 10
Associated Press
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Book Review: Ocean Vuong takes existentialism to deeply intimate level in 'The Emperor of Gladness'
Hai is 19 and suicidal. Grazina is 81 and living alone with dementia. So when she strikes a deal to house him so they can keep each other company in exchange for his help as a kind of unofficial live-in nurse, this could spell their mutual salvation or destruction. Ocean Vuong's new novel follows Hai as he takes care of Grazina and works in a fast-casual restaurant to help support them. Told in moments, 'The Emperor of Gladness' takes existentialism to a deeply intimate level, leaving the reader to contemplate what it is to live in a messy, complicated world of wars, addiction, class struggles and good people looking for second chances. The novel was immediately named Oprah Winfrey's latest book club pick. The author draws heavily on his own life — from Hai's family fleeing the Vietnam War to their jobs in the service industry that allow them to scrape by — so 'The Emperor of Gladness' is only a few degrees away from a memoir. And while it's told in prose, Vuong's penchant for poetry shows in patches of colorful, visceral language strewn with metaphors that run through the whole book, all the way back to its title. The novel opens with a movie-like sweep through East Gladness, a tiny town outside of Hartford, Connecticut. The omniscient narrator zooms in on various scenes of decay and neglect until we land on Hai, at possibly his lowest point. There's not so much a plot as a gathering of people and experiences. We piece together the characters' stories the way you would with real people in real life; through snippets that build atop each other until you can patch together a narrative of the relationships that left the biggest scars and the events that had profound impacts. Vuong achieves more by writing beside his characters than one would by writing a straightforward story about them. True and gritty, 'The Emperor of Gladness' is almost voyeuristic in how it looks into the most intimate and human moments of people's lives, reflecting back on the reader and leaving plenty to ponder. ___ AP book reviews:
CBS News
07-05-2025
- CBS News
Past arrest of new Uniontown Area High School girls basketball coach has parents asking questions
The hiring of a girls basketball coach at Uniontown Area High School is causing concern among some fans. Dierre Jenkins is the new girls basketball coach at the high school in Fayette County. But a past arrest for selling cocaine has parents asking why he got hired. The Uniontown Area School Board voted to hire Jenkins at Monday's board meeting. After Jenkins' arrest in 2023, he entered a program for first-time offenders that led to his criminal charges being dismissed and his record expunged. While Jenkins does have a lot of support in the community, there are still those who don't believe in second chances in this instance. "I wouldn't want my kid to be exposed to somebody who has that criminal past," said Ashley Fairfax. Fairfax is a parent in the Uniontown Area School District. She called the hiring of Jenkins disappointing. She believes athletic coaches fall into the same category as teachers and should be held to a different standard. ''They're around children and they're also public servants, basically, that they should be held accountable for their actions," she said. "I believe there's a second chance out there for him. I don't necessarily believe it should be at a school with children." Jenkins most recently served as an assistant boys basketball coach at neighboring Laurel Highlands High School before he was let go in 2023 after Pennsylvania State Police filed charges accusing him of selling cocaine to a confidential informant. "I think everyone deserves a second chance. If he's going to clean himself up, let him have it," parent Hattie Hughes said. Under the former district attorney, Jenkins entered an accelerated rehabilitative disposition program for first-time offenders. "There's a lot for people who make bad decisions, and then turn their life around and do much better for themselves the second time," Hughes added. Jenkins was a 2002 graduate of Uniontown Area High School and a member of the 2002 WPIAL basketball championship team. In a statement to KDKA-TV, Superintendent Dr. Dan Bosnic said, in part: "Coach Jenkins is recognized as an alumnus of the school and has a passion for the game of basketball. We look forward to the future success of our girls basketball program." Jenkins told KDKA-TV's Shelley Bortz off-camera that he's excited to be the team's coach and is looking forward to the challenge.
