The Second Chance Club
Hardship and Hope After Prison
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4.0 • 6 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A former parole officer shines a bright light on a huge yet hidden part of our justice system through the intertwining stories of seven parolees striving to survive the chaos that awaits them after prison in this illuminating and dramatic book.
Prompted by a dead-end retail job and a vague desire to increase the amount of justice in his hometown, Jason Hardy became a parole officer in New Orleans at the worst possible moment. Louisiana’s incarceration rates were the highest in the US and his department’s caseload had just been increased to 220 “offenders” per parole officer, whereas the national average is around 100. Almost immediately, he discovered that the biggest problem with our prison system is what we do—and don’t do—when people get out of prison.
Deprived of social support and jobs, these former convicts are often worse off than when they first entered prison and Hardy dramatizes their dilemmas with empathy and grace. He’s given unique access to their lives and a growing recognition of their struggles and takes on his job with the hope that he can change people’s fates—but he quickly learns otherwise. The best Hardy and his colleagues can do is watch out for impending disaster and help clean up the mess left behind. But he finds that some of his charges can muster the miraculous power to save themselves. By following these heroes, he both stokes our hope and fuels our outrage by showing us how most offenders, even those with the best intentions, end up back in prison—or dead—because the system systematically fails them. Our focus should be, he argues, to give offenders the tools they need to re-enter society which is not only humane but also vastly cheaper for taxpayers.
As immersive and dramatic as Evicted and as revelatory as The New Jim Crow, The Second Chance Club shows us how to solve the cruelest problems prisons create for offenders and society at large.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
We always hear about the shortcomings of the American legal system, but Jason Hardy’s shocking memoir reveals just how treacherous those problems can be. When Hardy first became a New Orleans parole officer in 2013, he was charged with supervising more than 200 individuals to ensure they didn’t return to prison. He quickly discovered how the Louisiana correctional system fell short in areas like providing services for people suffering from addiction and mental illness. Hardy’s experiences allow him to shine a harsh light on the reality that for most parolees, it doesn’t seem to matter whether they stay straight or not, since the system isn’t designed to help them stay on their feet for the long haul. That makes occasional redemption stories like that of Hard Head—a drug-addicted Vietnam vet who cycles through Hardy’s office 11 times before finding religion and establishing himself as a contractor—all the more inspiring. Full of appalling truths, The Second Chance Club is a call to action for much-needed criminal-justice reforms.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
FBI agent and former Louisiana parole officer Hardy explores the successes and failures of the U.S. probation system in this affecting blend of memoir and sociological treatise. After entering the New Orleans District probation and parole office in 2013 with the intention of playing an active role in the "unwinding of mass incarceration," Hardy quickly found that the system was severely underfunded and pulled in two diametrically opposed directions: "Purpose one was to put the offender back in jail. Purpose two was to keep him out." He illustrates the system's inadequacies and complexities through the experiences of seven of his more than 200 assigned parolees. The subjects include Sheila, an 18-year-old high school dropout arrested on obstruction-of-justice charges for flushing her boyfriend's drug stash down the toilet as police served a warrant, who starts a job at Subway while self-medicating her depression with marijuana, and "Hard Head," a 65-year-old homeless Vietnam War veteran and drug addict with six convictions and five parole revocations, who eventually finds hope through religion. According to Hardy, success within the current probation and parole system looks more like returning an offender to prison so he can get adequate mental health care, rather than complete rehabilitation. Hardy writes eloquently and treats everyone he encounters, from violent offenders and drug dealers to judges and colleagues, with empathy and accountability. The result is a revelatory account that threads the needle between exasperation and optimism.
