Brent J. Cohen’s Post

On Monday, I kicked off the Department’s first Second Chance Act Grantee conference in 9 years. In my remarks, I called for us to seize the opportunity presented by Pell Grants reinstatement to expand access to higher education and called upon private employers to implement fair chance hiring policies so that people with records can pursue fulfilling professional careers. Dating back to the late 1990s, the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (OJP) has been a leader in the reentry space and since the bipartisan Second Chance Act was passed in 2008, OJP has awarded more than 1,100 reentry grants, serving 400,000 people across the country. Reentry work is life-changing, sometimes life-saving, work but it happens within a broader societal and systemic context that does not support people who are coming home from incarceration. Collectively, we need to do more — for people who are coming home and for the long term safety and a stability of our communities.