Deanna Luprete

Deanna Luprete is the founder of Epicenter Ministries. A native Californian Deanna grew up in a household that was centered on restorative justice, as her dad was a parole officer for Los Angeles County,  until God called him to full time pastoral ministry.  

She has been involved in Texas prison ministry since 2002. Little did she know that ten years later her son would become incarcerated in California. It was during his incarceration that Deanna began to understand how broken the criminal justice system is both in California and Texas. Soon thereafter, she fully devoted herself to rehabilitative programs within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. 

While leading “Bridges to Life” in 2016, Deanna met Chon Dimas, Jeremy Gartrell and, Michael Tracy. All three of them were given lengthy adult prison sentences as children (now known as “Second Lookers”). Through these three Second Lookers, she became aware of 1,400+ other individuals serving sentences they were given as children during the ‘Texas Tough” era. Subsequently, she discovered a bill in her home state (SB 261) which related to parole reform for juvenile offenders serving extreme, if not life sentences. Upon further research, she found that a similar bill was being constructed in Texas. 

Armed with Acts 16:26 and a renewed sense of hope, she established Epicenter with a small social media presence that quickly grew. In 2017, Epicenter had 100 members during the 85th legislative session for the introduction of SB 556/HB 1274.

In 2019, Epicenter had 1,000 members for the introduction of SB 155/HB 256. Today, in 2024 Epicenter has 2,000 active members in the free world and 1,400 TDCJ residents that are diligently working to advocate for a “Second Look” be given to youth who are serving lengthy adult sentences in Texas. Deanna is dedicated to educating and encouraging residents of TDCJ, as well as equipping and empowering those returning to society.