Pubdate: Thu, 15 Mar 2001
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company
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Author: Peter T. Kilborn

FLOOD OF EX-CONVICTS FINDS JOB MARKET TIGHT

NEW ORLEANS - After a decadelong surge of people into the nation's prisons, 
sociologists and economists are warning of a new challenge for the labor 
force: the steady stream of people coming out.

The prison population soared in the 1990's, to 2 million from 1.2 million, 
and now tens of thousands of inmates are leaving prison each year, having 
completed their sentences or been granted parole. Though these ex-convicts 
are under pressure to find jobs and rejoin society, labor experts say that 
many have become the untouchables of the work force.

"This is a major upcoming issue," said Harry J. Holzer, a labor economist 
and professor of public policy at Georgetown University. "Half a million 
people are being released from prison over the next several years. Many of 
these guys come out with almost every characteristic that makes employers 
reluctant to hire. They're not just ex-offenders. They're high school 
dropouts. They have poor skills and substance-abuse problems."

The hurdles faced by ex-convicts seeking work can be staggering. Many 
employers flatly rule out hiring people with criminal records, regardless 
of the offense or when it occurred. Antidiscrimination laws rarely protect 
them.

And yet most of these ex-convicts, who are typically men, have a compelling 
need for a paycheck. Beyond court orders to work, they may also owe court 
costs - an average of $600 here in New Orleans. Many are also required to 
pay restitution to victims and to start child-support payments.

In today's tight labor market, some employers make exceptions for 
ex-convicts. But often they offer only the most menial jobs - washing 
dishes and lugging cinderblocks, worse jobs than many ex-convicts held 
before their arrests.

For Bobby Eubanks, 25, the temporary jobs he could sometimes get were dead 
ends that could not begin to support him, his three children by two women 
and the unborn child of his fiancee, a home health aide.

As a senior in high school, Mr. Eubanks was caught selling cocaine and was 
sent to a juvenile jail. He was released to his mother in Yazoo City, 
Miss., and later returned to New Orleans, where he was caught selling 
cocaine again and imprisoned for 34 months. Paroled last May, he found jobs 
as a common laborer, but the pay was less than $6 an hour and work stopped 
when it rained.

"I need a steady job," Mr. Eubanks said, sitting at a table in the parole 
office here. He was a muscular picture of dejection, now and then folding 
his face into the crook of an arm.

"I've been all over New Orleans filling out applications," he said. "But 
they don't call. All the applications ask if you have ever been convicted 
of a crime, and that kills the whole thing right there."

On St. Charles Avenue, ex-convicts sign in daily at a spartan, beige and 
linoleum office of the Louisiana Division of Probation and Parole. It is a 
busy place. Violent crime fell sharply here in the 1990's, in part because 
of tough enforcement of drug-dealing laws, leading to today's tide of newly 
released offenders.

About 8,200 are on the city's rolls, said Susan B. Lindsey, the division's 
New Orleans regional director. Except for a few hundred aged and disabled 
clients, she said, "all have an obligation to secure and maintain 
employment." But only half are working. While the others search, the office 
assigns them community service work - stuffing envelopes and washing state 
cars.

To help clients find work, the office enrolls them in free literacy classes 
and helps to prepare resumes and job applications. It offers twice-weekly 
classes with recruiters from Manpower, a temporary-work agency, and a few 
other employers openly willing to hire ex-convicts.

The clients checking in cover the spectrum from cocky to hopeless. One was 
Stennis May, a 30-year-old on parole after seven years in prison for armed 
robbery. Turned down for a food-plant job, he said: "I held strong. I just 
kept trying."

Finally a Shoney's restaurant took him on in the kitchen at $7 an hour, 
hardly enough to lift himself, much less his family of five, above the 
poverty line. But in late February Shoney's raised him to $9.

"I've been moved up to assistant manager," he said proudly. "I train cooks."

But for every beaming Stennis May, there is a Bobby Eubanks. Mr. Eubanks's 
girlfriend, Kimberly Derischebourg, said that as Mardi Gras approached last 
month, he heard of a bellhop job. He applied and was told to come back in 
an hour. He returned three times, and was told each time to wait - all for 
naught.

Mr. Eubanks said: "I'm trying to do the right thing. I'd like to get 
married. I just want a chance. That's all I want."

But on Sunday night, March 4, two days after he was interviewed for this 
article, Mr. Eubanks was shot and killed in a nightclub in Yazoo City, his 
home town. Detective Michael Wallace of the Yazoo City Police said: "From 
information gathered at the scene and from witnesses, he and another 
individual were attempting to rob the owner of the nightclub after closing. 
Gunfire was exchanged, and he died."

For the least educated young American black men like Mr. Eubanks, jail is 
more the norm than a job. Bruce Western, a professor of sociology at 
Princeton University who examined the effects of prison on jobs in a study 
in January, said that on a typical day two years ago, 29 percent of the 
nation's black male high school dropouts ages 22 to 30 were employed. Far 
more - 41 percent, up from 26 percent in 1990 - were in prison.

Once released, Professor Western said, bleak prospects for good jobs tempt 
the men back into crime. He said they start work making 10 percent to 30 
percent less than other young black dropouts without criminal records, and 
remain stuck there.

"We know that employment discourages crime," Professor Western said. "And 
because their employment opportunities are poor, they're more likely to 
commit crime again."

With New Orleans's rising population of probationers and parolees, programs 
have begun to tackle the barriers to ex-convicts' employment.

But there is only so much the programs can do.

Joseph Thomas, 27, is nearing the end of probation for selling drugs. He 
recently completed a commercial truck driving course at Transport Safe 
Training Center, through a federally financed project of Tulane and Xavier 
Universities' National Center for the Urban Community.

Short, wiry and affable, Mr. Thomas says he has been drug-free since his 
conviction and is all charged up to hit the Interstates making $40,000 a 
year in the cab of an 18-wheeler.

"I jump in the truck," Mr. Thomas said excitedly. "Adjust the mirror. Put 
on my seat belt. Release the brake. Whooooosh! It's fun. I'm driving 
something bigger than me."

Jerry L. Jones, the school's director, is proud of Mr. Thomas, who left 
school in the ninth grade. "He's an excellent student," Mr. Jones said. 
"He's made excellent progress."

But at best, Mr. Jones said, Mr. Thomas will have to spend some years 
driving a delivery van around New Orleans for wages closer to $14,000 a 
year. Until he finds a trucking company that disregards his conviction, Mr. 
Jones said, "he's going to get stuck on a certain level."
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