The national recidivism rate is 67% within three years of release. Two out of three people who leave prison end up back inside within 36 months. We cite that number like it’s a verdict — like it proves something fundamental about people who’ve been incarcerated. Like it’s inevitable. It’s not. And the data is very…
Second Chance Month · April 30, 2026 Today is April 30th. The last day of Second Chance Month. Tomorrow, the proclamations come down, the awareness posts stop, and everybody goes back to running background checks the same way they ran them in March. So before that happens, let’s talk about Larry Miller. If you follow…
An eight-second video clip hit the Facebook feed last week. The background was a simple prison fence. Three lines of text flickered on the screen. It wasn’t high-production. It wasn’t a celebrity endorsement. The reel claimed 3,500 likes, 80 comments, and over 1,100 shares in a matter of days. In the world of social media,…
We write a lot on this blog about second chances. Usually that means someone coming home from incarceration, trying to rebuild. Employers taking a shot. Communities opening a door. But second chances don’t only look like that. Sometimes a second chance looks like a warning. A conversation. A knock on the door from a law…
You’ve probably bought the bread. The bright green package. The seeds. The whole grain density that makes it feel like a responsible decision at the grocery store. Dave’s Killer Bread is in Costcos and Whole Foods and Safeways across the country. Flowers Foods bought it in 2015 for $275 million. What you might not know…
The warden told Andrew Jarecki not to talk to the men. “They’re very dangerous,” he said. “Don’t take anything from them.” Jarecki — the Oscar-nominated director behind The Jinx — walked into Easterling Correctional Facility in Alabama in 2019 to film a religious revival meeting. Within minutes, incarcerated men were whispering to him off-camera. People…
# The Keys Were Always on the Inside April is Second Chance Month. The month we talk about redemption, reentry, and giving people a fair shot after incarceration. So let’s talk about Jesus Reyes. Reyes is a 45-year-old California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officer. This week, he was charged alongside an alleged drug…
April is Second Chance Month, but if you’re running a business, you know that “second chances” shouldn’t just be a calendar event. It’s an operational philosophy. At Breaking Free Industries, we see it every day in our shop: men and women who have been counted out by society coming in and out-working everyone else because…
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During Second Chance Month, we focus on redemption. But extreme heat in prisons isn’t punishment, it’s torture. Here’s why survival must come first.
