April marks Second Chance Month, an opportunity to raise awareness of the barriers that many justice-impacted individuals face when reentering society and to highlight policy solutions that could ensure returning citizens have a fair opportunity to reach their full potential. It also marks two full years into the COVID-19 pandemic, which, despite some gains, has disproportionately forced 864,000 women out of the workforce. For justice-impacted women—especially Black women—this “shecession” has only exacerbated the permanent recession that millions of women and families impacted by criminal records were already facing pre-pandemic.
By Akua Amaning, the director of Criminal Justice Reform at the Center for American Progress, and Sheena Meade, the executive director of the Clean Slate Initiative., for Newsweek.
