“With this we helped to end the cycle of recidivism”: Johana Bahamón welcomed the passage of the Second Chances Act

On the afternoon of March 30, Johana Bahamón celebrated, through her social networks, the adoption of the Second Chances Act. The director of the Internal Action Foundation has been working for years to dignify, from culture, the lives of people who are in prison and those who have already paid their debt to justice and enter a state of postponement. In the last debate, in Congress, after four meetings to discuss the topic, the proposal was approved that aims to give new opportunities to people who, when released from prison, seek to start over.

“We have Law. Passed our Second Chances Act,” commented the founder of Acción Interna on her Instagram account. According to what is detailed in a statement issued by the entity that leads Bahamón, with the approval of this project, greater opportunities for access to the labor market, entrepreneurship routes and training for work will be given to postponed people.

In testimonies given to Infobae, Bahamón celebrated that the project is already a reality, and called on those who can participate to make it grow the way it should.

“The law of second chances is a reality. With this law, which generates inclusion, all companies that hire a postponed population will have tax and economic benefits. This is an invitation for all entrepreneurs to support people who regain their freedom, so that we generate second chances for people who, for the most part, haven't even had a first chance. With this we are helping to end the cycle of recidivism”, he highlighted in a talk with this portal.

The objective, according to the approaches, will be developed through the creation of tax and economic benefits to companies that hire this population. Thanks to this, the Foundation says, “a re-socialization will be promoted that will have a positive impact on crime and social welfare rates.”

“The postponed population has been stigmatized and discriminated against for years, which is why we have worked together with Johana Bahamón and all the benches of the congress to seek real re-socialization for people who have already served their sentences and are looking for an opportunity,” said Congressman Katherine Miranda, who was in charge of the promotion of this law alongside Bahamón.

“With this new law, at least 97,000 people held in the country will be able to benefit in the future, mostly people between 25 and 44 years of age, who represent 54 percent of the country's prison population,” added the representative to the House for the Green Alliance Party. The Act shall provide companies that join the initiative discounts on the payment of parafiscal for employees of the postponed population and discount on the payment of parafiscal for population employees with a gender focus.

In 2013, the Internal Action Foundation began its work. Bahamón began with this initiative after feeling deeply shocked after living an experience in prison. The then actress was a guest jury in a competition held at the Buen Pastor women's prison in Bogotá in 2012, and her life was never the same again.

She recalls talking to a convicted woman who told her that she was in jail for killing her husband after seeing him sexually abusing his three-year-old son. Johana, in multiple interviews, has said that she would also be in jail if she had experienced the same situation. Her son, Simon, by that time, was also three years old, which moved her much more. Johana felt empathy and realized that although you could be a prisoner of freedom, you could not be a prisoner of dignity.

The founder of Acción Interna began to create spaces dedicated to culture in the women's prison. It began with the idea of making a play with the condemned women. After years of work, there are several projects led by postponed persons who have already restarted their working lives.

“To improve the quality of life of the prison population, postponed and in vulnerable conditions in Colombia, generating opportunities for reconciliation and resocialization, through the development of their capacities and the generation of socially and economically sustainable productive projects”, the Foundation's mission stated on the page website of the same.

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