As communities across the country recognize Second Chance Month, DeAnna Hoskins, president and CEO of JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA), is taking the conversation a step further by challenging it.
“I always ask the question, ‘Is using the word ‘second chance’ unintentionally limiting?’” Hoskins tells BLACK ENTERPRISE. “When in reality, we’re asking for fair access, fair access to employment, fair access to housing.”
Hoskins has spent years advocating for people returning home from incarceration. Her perspective is shaped by lived experience, one that continues to inform how she approaches policy, power, and public safety.
Before she was advising at the highest levels of government, Hoskins was navigating the very system she now works to change.
“Part of my story is that I struggled with drug addiction,” Hoskins says. “I’ve been clean and sober for 27 years now. I needed drug treatment, not incarceration. But the system did not look at that. The system looked at the charge and sentenced me according to the charge, which detached me from my kids. At the time, my daughter was 8 months old. A person has to be held accountable for the crime, but should we take the person into consideration during that crime?”
Hoskins says her “a-ha” moment came after hearing a podcast that included a courtroom recording of a judge who paused before sentencing a defendant to ask, ‘I want to know what happened to you, that you ended up committing this crime?’
“She saw a human, she didn’t just see a charge,” Hoskins recalls. “That’s where it drove home for me.”
That realization proved pivotal. Hoskins began asking to see the official policy after employers tried to deny her jobs because she was on probation.
“They were like, ‘DeAnna, we want to hire you, but based on our policies we can’t because of your felony,’” she says. “I asked one company for the policy and they didn’t have it. That’s when I started researching policy.”
What she uncovered was not just misunderstanding but systemic inconsistency.
“I realized not only the myths, but the policy violations,” she says. “People were just blanket refusing to hire people with criminal backgrounds. The judge sentenced you to community supervision, and one of the conditions is to get a job.”
That contradiction became a turning point.
“I just really picked up this daredevil attitude of, I’m just going to push back on the system. I was so broken from incarceration that I felt, what did I have to lose?
Second Chance Month traces back to the Second Chance Act, signed into law in 2008 under President George W. Bush to support reentry programs and resources.
But Hoskins says the reality of reentry still falls short.
“If I’m sentenced and that’s my punishment, when is the punishment over?” she says. “Why do you have all these systemic consequences if you believe in that system?”
For many returning citizens, those consequences show up immediately as barriers to housing, employment, healthcare, and basic stability.
“We have been so oppressed and entrenched on what we can’t do,” she says. “Nobody told me what I could do.”
Through JLUSA’s advocacy work, Hoskins and her team have identified widespread misinformation about what people with criminal records are legally allowed to access.
From voting rights to housing eligibility, she says many restrictions are not federal mandates, but local policies or outright misconceptions.
“These barriers aren’t always legal,” she says, pointing to the organization’s “MythBusters” work aimed at correcting false narratives.
That misinformation doesn’t just confuse people, it limits opportunity.
“We’ve been entrenched to believe what our limitations are,” she says.
For business leaders and entrepreneurs, Hoskins says creating fair access starts with rethinking hiring practices.
Rather than eliminating background checks altogether, she advocates for transparency. Employers should clearly outline which convictions are disqualifying and delay background checks until later in the hiring process.
“Initially, people are being screened based on their knowledge, skills, and abilities,” she says.
That shift not only reduces bias. It expands the talent pool.
“I may have a crime, but I’ve been home 10 years with no interaction,” she says.
Hoskins also challenges how public safety is defined, arguing that it extends far beyond policing.
“Public safety is affordable housing. Public safety is access to healthcare. Public safety is access to mental health,” she says.
When people with lived experience are included in shaping those systems, she says, the result is more effective and more humane policy.“ You get systems that no longer traumatize, systems that engage and give agency to people.”
At the same time, Hoskins is clear about the economic forces behind mass incarceration.
“Incarceration is a billion-dollar business,” she says, pointing to the industries tied to everything from prison communications to commissary systems.
Because of that, she believes meaningful change requires more than reform. It requires reducing reliance on a system built on profit.
“We have to create fair opportunities so people don’t default to incarceration,” she says.
For Hoskins, one of the biggest misconceptions about people with lived experience is that their stories are meant to inspire, rather than inform.
“I don’t want my story to inspire you,” she said. “I want my story to inform how you do policy.”
It’s a distinction that reframes not just Second Chance Month, but the broader national conversation. Because, as she sees it, the issue isn’t whether individuals deserve another opportunity.
“This isn’t about giving people a second chance. It’s about whether the system offers a fair chance at all.”
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