Update: Second Chance Act of 2005
From the National H.I.R.E. Network Update, December 2005
As many of you know, the National H.I.R.E. Network has been actively working for passage of the Second Chance Act in Congress. We wanted to update H.I.R.E. members on the legislation's status and also ask for your help in getting the Second Chance Act to become law.
The Second Chance Act, H.R. 1704 in the House and S.1934 in the Senate, recognizes the need for comprehensive services for the nearly 650,000 people who are released from incarceration into the community every year. The House version of the Second Chance Act currently has 97 bi-partisan co-sponsors. The Senate version of the Second Chance Act has 12 bi-partisan co-sponsors. Chief co-sponsors of the House version are Congressmen Chris Cannon (R-UT) and Danny Davis (D-IL); the Senate version has been championed by Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), Arlen
Specter (R-PA), and Joseph Biden (D-DE)
The Second Chance Act would reauthorize the Department of Justice's grant program that supports reentry services for individuals being released from prisons and jails. A number of different services, including education, job training, English as a Second Language, and work experience programs, could be funded through these grants. In addition, the Second Chance Act would establish a task force on Federal programs and activities relating to reentry, support a review of other Federal and State barriers that bar individuals with criminal records from having access to employment opportunities, welfare benefits and housing, and establish a grants program for community-based groups to provide mentoring to formerly incarcerated people returning to the community.
The Senate version of the Second Chance would also improve the Workplace and Community Transition Training for Incarcerated Youth Offenders Act by increasing the eligibility age from 25 to 35 years, requiring State correctional education agencies to track student outcomes to compare with outcomes of non-program participants, and increasing the allowable expenditure per young person up to the level of the maximum Federal Pell Grant award for tuition, books and essential materials, and related services, including career development.
Although we had hoped that the Congress would approve the Second Chance Act this fall, there were a number of other legislative priorities that prevented the legislation from moving forward. We are hopeful that when Congress returns from the winter recess at the end of January they will work towards swift passage of the Second Chance Act. However, for that to happen, we need your help. We need additional members of both the House and the Senate, especially Republican members, to agree to co-sponsor the legislation. Your Senators and House Representatives need to hear from you about how important it is for them to support the Second Chance Act by becoming a co-sponsor.
A list of co-sponsors of H.R. 1704 and S. 1934 can be found by clicking here.
Contact information for your House and Senate members can be found at: www.house.gov and www.senate.gov . Additional information about both versions of the Second Chance Act can be found at: http://thomas.loc.gov.
