Second Look at the Texas Book Festival

Team members discuss the Second Look Book with festival attendees

“My survival has largely been fueled by hope of a second chance at life, and I am living proof that youthful offenders are not beyond hope or rehabilitation.” Chon Dimas, sentenced to 75 years at 17 years old

On October 27th and 28th, TCJC was at the Texas Book Festival, along with family members directly impacted by youth incarceration, talking with people from all over the state about the Second Look Book. This book is a collection of stories from people who were sentenced as kids to extreme terms in adult prisons in Texas, and the online version is available for FREE on our website.

It is wrong to deny a child the opportunity to demonstrate rehabilitation. However, in Texas, kids who are sentenced to an adult prison can serve 40 years before being eligible for parole; our laws currently provide no viable mechanism for reviewing a case after a young person has grown up and matured. We talked with hundreds of people who agreed that Texas should consider joining with the vast majority of other states, which provide an earlier parole hearing focused on the extent to which the person has demonstrated that they merit a second chance. Such an early parole consideration will not only give some people the opportunity to be released sooner, saving massive taxpayer dollars spent on incarceration — it will do so without compromising public safety.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by our exhibit booth! You can learn more about Second Look here

 

Photos from the Event


    

     

      

About the Author

Lindsey Linder, J.D.

Lindsey Linder

Lindsey Linder is the former Senior Policy Attorney for the Texas Center for Justice and Equity. Lindsey co-founded the Texas Women’s Justice Coalition, a statewide group of more than 60 system-impacted women and advocates calling for women’s justice, and she was a 2020 finalist for the Austin Under 40 Awards for her policy work and advocacy. During summer 2014, she interned with UNICEF in Tel Aviv, Israel, drafting a report on Israel’s implementation of the UN treaty Convention on the Rights of the Child to be submitted to the New York and Geneva United Nations headquarters for review. Lindsey first joined TCJE as a member of Senator Rodney Ellis’ Texas Legislative Internship Program, and she continued to support TCJE while completing law school, receiving her Juris Doctor with honors from Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2016.