The Second Chance Chronicles w/ Chaddrick Thomas

By Chaddrick Thomas They don’t even hide it anymore. Whenever a police officer violates your rights, or a prison denies your humanity, the excuse is always the same: “Safety and security.” Those three words have become the most powerful shield in the American justice system—not to protect the public, but to protect the institution. The Master Manipulators of Safety Language From police precincts to prison yards, officials have mastered the art of using fear to justify anything: Unlawful searches Excessive force Racial profiling Censorship Solitary confinement Denial of legal documents or due process The logic goes like this: If we say it’s for safety, it doesn’t have to make sense. It doesn’t even have to be true. The “Public Safety Exception” – A Loophole in Due Process Let’s start with law enforcement. Everyone knows about Miranda rights: “You have the right to remain silent…” But here’s the catch: Police are allowed to bypass those rights under a loophole called the “public safety e...

  By Chaddrick Thomas They don’t just lock our bodies behind bars. They lock away our books, our hair grease, our music, our memories, our children’s photos— our culture. In prison, being Black isn’t just your identity. It’s treated as a threat. And for decades, the system has been carefully designed to erase, restrict, or reinterpret Blackness as criminality. From the Plantation to the Prison Block: A Legacy of Policing Culture Let’s be clear—this didn’t start in the prison system. It started on the auction blocks, when Black skin was commodified. It evolved on the plantations, where slaveowners outlawed drumming, literacy, and African dialects—calling them “dangerous.” It was encoded into Black Codes and Jim Crow laws that made “loitering,” “vagrancy,” or “talking back” criminal if you were Black. And it lives on today in prison policies that say a child’s peace sign in a photo is a gang gesture. This isn’t about safety. This is about control. Books Denied, Knowledge Denied You t...

  By Chaddrick Thomas They call it “rehabilitation.” They call it “reentry preparation.” But in truth, what prison does to a person isn’t always about preparing them for society. Sometimes it’s about reshaping them to fit inside a system—a system that wants order, not growth. Control, not healing. Submission, not transformation. This is what they don’t tell you about incarceration: The longer you’re here, the more they try to resocialize you— not into who you could become, but into who they need you to be to manage you. What Is Resocialization? Resocialization is the process by which someone’s beliefs, behaviors, and identity are broken down and restructured to fit a new environment. In theory, it’s meant to help you adapt. In prison, it becomes a tool to erase parts of you. They strip you of your name and give you a number. They strip you of your choices and give you orders. They strip you of your rhythm, your identity, your instincts—and call it rehabilitation. But what if you we...