Giving Prisoners a Second Chance

When President Bush signed the Second Chance Act on April 9, he was surrounded by congressional leaders from both parties and opposite ends of the political spectrum. The room was packed with joyous supporters who had worked very harcud for over five years to see this important bill signed into law. So many people wanted to be part of the historic ceremony that it had to be moved from the Oval Office to the Eisenhower Exetive Office Building next door.

These supporters ranged from Prison Fellowship to the ACLU and included the Methodists, NAACP, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Catholic Bishops, Open Society Institute, Council of State Governments, La Raza and the American Correctional Association. This diverse coalition of more than 200 groups worked together to pass the Second Chance Act (SCA) to refocus America's prisons on preparing inmates to return to their communities.

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The congressional sponsors literally spanned the ideological spectrum: Senators Joseph Biden (D-DE), Arlen Specter (R-PA), Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT); and Representatives Danny Davis (D-IL), Chris Cannon (R-UT), John Conyers (D-MI), Lamar Smith (R-TX), Bobby Scott (D-VA), Randy Forbes (R-VA), and Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH). It is truly remarkable that in the midst of a very partisan election year, these leaders set aside their differences and cooperated on a bill that will help people who have no political voice: prisoners who want to turn their lives around.

The legislation establishes several grant competitions for states and local governments to improve their planning process for inmates about to be released. One important feature of these grants is the opportunity for states to include in their plans community organizations that provide housing, job training, and health and drug treatment. The SCA also establishes grants for new drug treatment programs, an area that has been severely underfunded.

The program in the bill that is most exciting for Prison Fellowship is the funding for local mentoring programs. Though Prison Fellowship will not accept any government money, the churches we work with will be able to apply for grants to recruit, train, match and monitor mentors for inmates and their families.

Another important provision of the bill reverses the current policy of the Bureau of Prisons that prohibits volunteers who have worked with inmates from mentoring these same inmates when they are released. This ridiculous policy has cut off thousands of ex-offenders from the very people most likely to help them stay out of trouble. Fortunately, when I brought this up before the House Crime Subcommittee, the committee members were outraged and insisted on specifically reversing the policy in the Second Chance Act.

This is a very short overview of the Second Chance Act. For more details please read this section by section analysis.

Process and Timing of Grants

The grants authorized by the SCA are not immediately available. Nor are they necessarily going to be funded. The congressional budget process has many steps. Now that the programs in the SCA have been authorized, we now must get them appropriated.

The members of Congress that we work with to get the money appropriated are different than those we labored with to get the SCA authorized. So, we have to educate the appropriators about the importance of the programs in the SCA. They can appropriate all, some or none of the SCA programs.

If we succeed in getting funds appropriated for the mentoring grants, then the Department of Justice will issue regulations to govern the grants. A competition would then follow from which the DOJ would select the grantees.

These processes must take place in a certain order and are independent of each other. For
this reason, it is unclear how soon the money will flow to these grants.

No Time to Rest on Our Oars

Even though it may be as long as two more years before the grant recipients are announced, in order to fund them we need your help.

Please write your Congress Member and Senators in support of appropriations for the Mentoring Grants. Visit our Legislative Action Center which will allow you to identify your representatives and has more information and a sample letter in support of funding the Second Chance Act.

In His service,
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