“…Owens previously worked as a custodian, and while in prison he earned a certificate for commercial custodian services. But persistent high unemployment and his felony record have left him looking for work. “There’s nothing out there,” he says. “They’re certifying us for jobs that don’t exist…”

Illinois’ Injustice System

“…If history is any guide, rates for black males, who account for two-thirds of Illinois’ prison population, are likely even higher. In 2005, in a comparatively favorable job environment, an Urban Institute report found that a year after being released, only 28 percent of black males surveyed were employed, while 60 percent had been employed before their arrests…”

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Just read on in the article about the findings of the 2010 John Howard Association report on the cut-backs in IL prison education and vocational programs and drug treatment centers and housing. The impacts of these reductions are not only scary in terms of the overcrowding and increasing populations in IL prisons state-wide, but also because of the increasing numbers of youths and teenagers who are being criminalized at an earlier and earlier age, saddled with conviction records before they even leave high-school for minor offenses which once used to be dealt with within the school system but are now leaving them with consequences which will follow them the rest of their lives: