Employing Former Prisoners

Former prisoners are returning in high concentrations to the West and South Sides of the City of Chicago. Generally characterized by high levels of poverty, female-headed households and crime, as well as low levels of employment and educational attainment, these communities are the most socially and economically disadvantaged communities in the city.

While many residents in these communities face challenges in finding adequate employment, the challenges are even greater for former prisoners reentering these communities, after serving their debt to society. MCIC analyzed data from the Illinois Department of Corrections and various employment-related datasets to identify the communities most impacted by re-entry issues and examined characteristics of the re-entry population and re-entry communities in the context of employment opportunity and the availability of services.

Former Prisoners - A Profile
Former prisoners returning to Chicago neighborhoods are predominantly male and under the age of 35; the most commonly represented age group among former prisoners on their final release between 2004 and 2006 was 20 - 25 years of age. African Americans represent 84 percent of returning former prisoners and 60 percent of returning former prisoners have not completed high school.

These former prisoners are younger and less educated than the overall population of their re-entry community, and face the additional employment barriers of having limited job skills, no recent employment history and a criminal record. In addition, many former prisoners are homeless or have unmet needs for mental health care and substance abuse treatment.

Employment Opportunities
MCIC research highlights areas where employment opportunities for former prisoners might be likely - or unlikely - to exist given the current distribution of jobs by industry type, wage category and age category of workers, and projected growth in occupations with low educational requirements.

GROWTH INDUSTRIES
* In most re-entry communities, service jobs are the most commonly available type of employment.

* Excluding cash-handling occupations from which former prisoners are likely to be effectively barred, the most relevant growth sector is in accommodation and food services. These jobs are mostly concentrated on the North and West sides; however, three re-entry communities - the Loop, Near West Side and West Garfield Park - also show high concentrations.

EARNINGS
* Only 12 percent of workers living in re-entry communities earned over $3,400 per month from their primary job; the majority (57 percent) earn between $1,200 and $3,400, and 31 percent earn less than $1,200 per month. This is lower than the city as a whole, where 23 percent earn less than $1,200, 47 percent between $1,200 and $3,400 and 30% earn over $3,400 per month.

UNEMPLOYMENT RATES AND LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION
* Unemployment rates are higher in re-entry communities than in the city as a whole. While the Chicago rate is estimated at 8.1 percent, the rates in eleven of the twelve re-entry communities range from 12.5 percent in South Shore to 21.9 percent in North Lawndale.

* In addition to high rates of unemployment, re-entry communities have somewhat lower rates of labor force participation. Citywide, 39.1 percent of the population age fifteen or above were not in the labor force. In five of the reentry communities more than half of residents age fifteen or above are not in the labor force.

COMMUTE TIME
* Workers living on the North, Northwest, and Near Southwest Sides have shorter commutes than workers living on the West Side or South Side, where the re-entry population is concentrated.

SOCIAL SERVICES AND TARGETED EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS
* Some re-entry communities, such as the Loop, East Garfield Park, West Garfield Park, and Washington Park have high concentrations of health and social service providers; others, such as Chicago Lawn, Roseland, and South Shore have lower concentrations of health and social service providers.

* Areas where targeted work to promote the employment of returning former prisoners include those that have a high concentration of workers who resemble the returning population demographically, i.e., areas with high percentages of jobs held by young workers and high percentages of lower paying (and presumably lower skilled) jobs.

UNMET NEEDS: JOBS, HOUSING AND EDUCATION
The vast majority of former prisoners in Chicago live in poverty and are faced with many obstacles when it comes to securing the basic necessities such as permanent shelter and employment. Should they be able to secure employment, limited access to transportation increases the challenges for the re-entry population to get to and from jobs.

While community-based services exist to help former prisoners fully re-integrate back into their communities, they are limited. Lack of education and job skills are still significant barriers to self-sufficiency because the most employment opportunities in Chicago are available to either the highly skilled or the unskilled, with the latter providing less than a living wage. The cycle of poverty and homelessness perpetuates the challenges faced by most former prisoners and will continue until more is done to ensure that former prisoners secure basic education and meaningful job skills.

As the Chicago research partner in the Urban Institute's Re-entry Mapping Network, an initiative to foster community change through analysis and mapping of neighborhood level data related to the re-entry population, MCIC conducted the analysis for this report and produced maps of employment of re-entry population data using a variety of data sources.

NOTE: Top re-entry communities include: Auburn Gresham, Austin, Chicago Lawn, East Garfield Park, Englewood, Greater Grand Crossing, Humboldt Park, Logan Square, Loop, Near West Side, New City, North Lawndale, Roseland, South Lawndale, South Shore, Washington Park, West Englewood, and West Garfield Park.

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