A Second Chance Act sounds good but is the offender really being given a second chance. Many offenders are not able to find jobs that will support their financial and family responsibilities beause of background checks and credit check! How is an offender who has a family ,giving child support , paying rent on 8-10 dollars an hour. What is a second chance? and at what?

The boundaries  and limitationsneed to be taken off  so that the offender can find suitable work.

Very few ex-felons will be able to have family or friends that can take them in. The federal and state governments need to blaze the way with job oppotunities with benefits for better success in reentries.

As a former offender. Jobs and the opportunity for a decent job at a decent wage should be one of the key focal points for offender reentry or "Second Chance" program.

However that being said, offenders need to learn to be patient with themselves and the world around them. Getting a high paying job is not something that is going to happen overnight. The complaints I hear far too often by offenders I know who are constantly in and out of prison, are that they couldn't do this or couldn't do that, no one would listen to them, no one would hire them, etc. Most of that comes back to several factors. Laziness, thinking inside the box, lack of education, lack of practical knowledge in areas like resume writing, budgeting, knowing where to look for work. I cannot count the times I have heard this line, "there weren't any jobs in the paper".

It took me several years of establishing credibility in the IT/Software industry to get where I am today, 14 years later. Someone needs to develop a program that teaches real world skills, based on real world scenarios and make it MANDATORY for ALL Federal and State inmates prior to release.

Okay, that's my two cents.