Second ChancesAvailable now

About this book

Second Chances: A Cultural History of Redemption and Rehabilitation explores how Western societies have granted or denied opportunities for reintegration across centuries—from medieval penance and Enlightenment prison reform to the punitive turn of recent decades, digital-era stigma, personal redemption narratives, and special cases like El Salvador’s fight against gang violence and the complex role of mental illness. It reveals second chances as a revealing measure of societal values, power, and mercy, while highlighting both their contraction and the persistent human (and cross-species) impulse to offer paths back to belonging.