Second Chance

Inspiration

The United States releases over 600,000 people from prison every year. Within three years, more than two thirds of them are rearrested. That number gets cited constantly in policy papers and op-eds, and then nothing changes. We wanted to understand why, and more importantly, do something about it.

What it does

Second Chance opens every morning with a personal check-in. It asks how you are doing, shows your daily streak, surfaces your tasks for the day, and adjusts based on your answer. Good days get you moving. Hard days get a real conversation first.

The home screen gives you today's most important steps at a glance, a weekly progress snapshot, and quick access to everything else in the app.

My Plan is the core. It is a week by week life calendar built around a dependency graph that sequences every reentry step in the correct order. Get your ID before your bank account. Secure housing before applying for benefits. Steps unlock as you complete them. When something goes wrong, the plan rebuilds around the new reality automatically.

Catch Up is a personalized short-form feed based on how long you were inside and the topics you care about. LGBTQ+ rights, technology, financial tools, legal changes, social shifts. Everything that moved while you were away, explained in plain language by someone who respects your intelligence.

Find Help pulls real local resources from the 211.org API filtered to your city. Shelters, food banks, legal aid, mental health services, and felon-friendly employers with real addresses, real phone numbers, and real hours.

The AI companion runs through all of it. It speaks like someone who has been through hard things and came out the other side. Not a chatbot. Not a government portal. A voice that listens before it advises and never makes you feel like a case number.

How we built it

React Native with Expo for cross-platform mobile. The core is a dependency graph engine that models every reentry step with prerequisites and resolves them topologically into a sequenced plan based on the user's specific situation.

Kiro powers the entire AI layer. Agent hooks drive the daily check-ins and adaptive re-planner. State eligibility rules load as steering documents so the app never suggests a benefit the user does not qualify for. External data including 211.org and felon-friendly employer databases connect through Kiro MCP. The Claude API powers the companion voice.

Challenges we ran into

The dependency graph was harder than expected. Reentry is not a linear checklist. Prerequisites have exceptions that vary by state and conviction type, and the plan still needed to feel simple to someone overwhelmed on day one.

The dependency graph was harder than expected. Reentry is not a linear checklist. Prerequisites have exceptions that vary by state and conviction type, and the plan still needed to feel simple to someone overwhelmed on day one.

In the middle of it all, one of our laptops crashed. We lost close to three hours of work and had to rebuild from memory with less than an hour left.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Second Chance does not feel like a hackathon project. The dependency graph produces plans that are genuinely sequenced and logically correct. The resources are real. The companion voice stays consistent across every interaction type. And the cultural catch-up feed addresses something no existing reentry tool touches at all.

What we learned

A list of resources is not a plan. A plan without the right sequence is still a maze. And a technically correct roadmap delivered in the wrong tone can still feel alienating to the person who needs it most.

We also learned that Kiro's steering documents are not just a quality mechanism. In this context, getting eligibility rules wrong has real consequences for real people. That raised the bar on everything.

What's next for Second Chance

Expanding state coverage to all 50 states is the immediate priority. After that, a family reconnection module for people rebuilding relationships with children and partners at the same time as everything else. The longer goal is partnering with halfway houses and public defenders to get Second Chance into people's hands before they are released, so day one starts before they walk out the door.

Built With

• groq
• kiro
• typescript