women ex-convicts

Released from prison, Kenna Rowan returns to the town where it all went wrong, hoping to reunite with her four-year-old daughter, but with everyone against her, she turns to local bar owner Ledger Ward who, risking everything, secretly helps her make amends.

"Just weeks after graduating from the Dean's List from Tennessee State University, Keeda Haynes became an inmate at Alderson Federal Prison Camp, all for a crime she didn't commit. This was never meant to be her story. Her childhood was spent in church, band practice, and Girl Scouts meetings, and when she enrolled at TSU, the path ahead had seemed bright. Then one day her boyfriend had asked for a simple favor, to sign to receive some FedEx packages-packages she did not know were filled with marijuana. Suddenly she found herself in court and sentenced to seven years in prison-the same sentence she'd would have been handed if she had dealt the drugs herself. The experience of this injustice led her to question the foundations of her faith, and to confront a criminal justice system filled with race and class inequities-but instead of succumbing to despair and becoming yet another victim of our failed national "War on Drugs," she decided to dedicate her life toward making our justice system truly just. Even after she was released, she knew there was still so much freedom left to fight for. Haynes attended law school at night and became a public defender. She went on to become a criminal justice reform advocate supporting formerly incarcerated women, and in 2020 she became a candidate hoping to become the first Black woman to represent Tennessee in Congress. When she fights against mandatory minimum sentencing laws, advocates for successful transitions for those who have served their time, and seeks alternative sentencing for parents to help keep families together, she draws from her own personal experiences with how our unequal justice system treats the most vulnerable. Through her unique perspective and passionate activism, she now tells her story to help us reshape our communities into a true second chance culture. What she's learned firsthand-slowly, painfully-is that our future does not have to be defined by our past. And she knows that we're all ready for the long fight towards justice"--.

"Susan Burton's world changed in an instant when her five-year-old son was killed by a van driving down their street. Consumed by grief and without access to professional help, Susan self-medicated, becoming addicted first to cocaine, then crack. As a resident of South Los Angeles, a black community under siege in the War on Drugs, it was but a matter of time before Susan was arrested. She cycled in and out of prison for over fifteen years; never was she offered therapy or treatment for addiction. On her own, she eventually found a private drug rehabilitation facility. Once clean, Susan dedicated her life to supporting women facing similar struggles. Her organization, A New Way of Life, operates five safe homes in Los Angeles that supply a lifeline to hundreds of formerly incarcerated women and their children--setting them on the track to education and employment rather than returns to prison. Becoming Ms. Burton not only humanizes the deleterious impact of mass incarceration, it also points the way to the kind of structural and policy changes that will offer formerly incarcerated people the possibility of a life of meaning and dignity.

Mason "Mace" Perry, having been incarcerated for two years and lost her badge for a crime she did not commit, is released from prison and determined to be reinstated, deciding the only way to do so is to solve a murder of a female lawyer, but evidence of secrets within the private and public world of the nation's capital threaten her chances of becoming a police officer again and her life.

Tells the true story of Elaine Bartlett, a victim of New York's controversal Rockefeller drug law, and her struggle to adjust to life on the outside after sixteen years in prison.