If You Are Still Breathing You Have A Second Chance!

Sometimes in life, it feels like we only get one chance, one shot but in the words of Oprah Winfrey, “If you are still breathing you have a second chance.”

April is Second Chance Month and as it comes to a close we wanted to celebrate some Black women who are deserving of a second chance and who are on the road to redemption. Women like Cyntoia Brown, Shanteari Weems, Danielle Metz, and Kemba Smith are examples of how the criminal justice system continues to fail Black women.

These women have proved that we are not our mistakes and that we all have the chance to change our lives for the better. We must continue to advocate for prison reform to end the mass incarceration of Black women and other people of color.

In 2021, The Sentencing Project reported that the imprisonment rate for Black women – at 62 per 100,000 – was 1.6 times the rate of imprisonment for White women.

While the overall imprisonment for Black and Latinx women has declined since 2000 and increased for White women over that same period, Black and Native American girls remain more likely to face incarceration than White, Asian, and Latinx girls.