TV Program Provider Expands Reach

LOS ANGELES — A free faith-based television program designed to reduce recidivism rates is gaining popularity at several U.S. correctional facilities. 


Second Chance, launched by Trinity Broadcasting Network in 2007, is designed to offer inmates positive, life-affirming television programming 24 hours a day, in an effort to help them make positive choices during incarceration and after re-entry into society.


The program is fully funded by TBN and provides four TV channels to accommodate diverse inmate populations, along with necessary viewing equipment, free of charge to correctional and rehabilitative facilities.


Subscribers to the program include private prison operator Corrections Corporation of America, which is planning to implement Second Chance programming at its 65 state, federal and juvenile facilities. CCA officials estimate 75,000 prisoners across 19 states and the District of Columbia will have access to the programming.


Officials with the state department of corrections in Texas and Florida are finalizing agreements to offer the programming in all of their correctional facilities. Following a positive reaction by inmates to a Second Chance pilot program, South Dakota prison officials plan to introduce programming at all state facilities.


Corrections administrators in Ohio, Mississippi and South Carolina plan to start pilot programs soon.


Correctional facilities that subscribe to the program have the option to receive up to four of the network’s faith-based channels, including TBN; The Church Channel, which airs church services and teaching programs from different denominations; TBN Enlace USA, which offers faith programs in Spanish; and JCTV, a faith-based entertainment channel aimed at 13- to 29-year-olds.


All network channels can be received with a Ku band satellite dish and appropriate receivers.


The network has also formed partnerships with Buford Satellite Systems and Correctional Cable TV to offer programming to prisons and jails already using those services.