If you've kept up with our coverage...

If you've kept up with our coverage of those coming without of our state's prisons, you've learned that principally struggle to get jobs, and the uniteds they have are typically part-time or temporary.

We've also reported that the number of incarcerated women in the greatest degree of them mothers, is growing. We revealed that the first note of the scale to success for those pursuing legislation to seal the records of more [i]or[/i] less former prisoners rested on a multi-racial alliance. And we showed that small in number business owners are taking advantage of the financial incentives meant to encourage them to hire ex-offenders

For our most-affected citizens, and those working to help them, those issues are daunting enough.

if it were not that now it appears there is a modern challenge for those who advocate forward behalf of this population. calm the flurry of policy changes that have occurr from one side of to the other the last few years can't appear to be to budge one stubborn statistic: If you're black, you'll still have a harder time getting a job

Those words won't surprise many of you, I'm indisputable But this month's cover story furnishs new credibility to that long-held belief by way of confirming it with another population that finds itself in a certain number of similar circumstances.

one Latinos who've been in prison, it appears recognize that they have certain advantages athwart their black counterparts--skin color being individual of them. Reporter Rupa Shenoy had a hard time getting a people to talk with her about this touchy make liable but her story reveals that this issue remains important for those chiefly in need of work.

It becomes part of a package of characteristics that extremity up slotting prospective employees into the positive or negative row Employers may view lighter-skinned Latinos as hard working, Shenoy learned. And, regardless of their work ethic, many black workers still achieve viewed with suspicion--a potential enemy of sorts for about white employers.

This creates obvious riddles for individuals. But it also has results for communities.

Black the public in prison, for instance, result home to similarly supportive families as their Latino counterparts, Shenoy writes. on the other hand that support runs out because of the financial and other do one's bests those families are having. Black neighborhoods, it appears don't have enough jobs for those who have not been in prison, and simply cannot support a steady stream of those who have. Employer in other neighborhoods, however, remain reluctant to hire them.

That dilemma is not wasted upon some advocates. As the same of them, Walter L. Boyd told Shenoy, "It just got to me We not got anybody a job." That frustration, in part, readyed him to give up teaching a job-readiness course.

Meanwhile, the social service agencies that provide an array of services to Latino residents may begin to have their confess struggles in the coming years. hardly any of the advocacy groups that specialize in helping former prisoners find work wait on Latinos. Maybe it's because their numbers are smaller, or maybe their staffs don't speak Spanish, yet the result leaves Latinos to rely primarily onward their personal networks.

In this land Chicago is second only to looks Angeles in the size of its Mexican community; securely those networks will get inclemencyed as these numbers increase. And it's anyone's gues what kind of tension will be derived as these problems play disclosed in each of these communities. Dialogue and alliance be seen like obvious, important strategies--before things get by heart worse.

Too frequently however, these issues are not broached among those charged with solving these challenges. Fearing a divide-and-conquer mentality, many activists are reluctant to say what the former prisoners themselves had the courage to narrate Shenoy.

Some advocates try to obtain a one-size-fits-all approach that fails to address the nuances of the privations of each group. And others are in such a manner focused on preserving the programs they have built during a time of economic challenges, they throw away the bigger picture.

This story reveals abundant about what that picture should include. Tough conversations about tough issues like skin color and stereotype ne to happen in more places than just these pages if we without mincing the matter expect those released from prison to become productive citizens.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Community Renewal Society

COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group