Second Chance Month raises awareness of challenges faced by the formerly incarcerated

Published: April 27, 2026

By: Izzy Wollfarth, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE – Beginning at age 16, Christi Cheramie was locked away for 25 years. She was a “juvenile lifer,” which is what juveniles serving life sentences without parole were called before the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the statute.

On Feb. 15, 2019, Cheramie was released from prison. She recalls the ride home vividly.

“I remember asking myself while I was looking out the window, where do I belong?” Cheramie said. “I didn’t quite understand where I was going to fit in a society that I didn’t know.”

Robert Walter Spencer said he grew up at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Spencer was in charge of the sound systems for the annual prison rodeo and was called on frequently to help. When Spencer was released in 2020 after spending 40 years incarcerated, the simple quiet of a friend’s empty home frightened him.

“Every little crack and creek and piling affected me,” Spencer said. “It was almost like having PTSD. It’s gotten a lot better, but at first I was kind of intimidated being alone.”