Aug. 25--As he rode home on a Greyhound bus earlier this year, 19-year-old Dennis Rodriguez swore he had learned his lesson. He would do whatever he could, he said, to stay out of prison and to steer clear of the gangs that had a tight grip on his Chicago neighborhood.
In fact, after a month of electronic monitoring that kept him largely inside his family's home, he had registered for school just a half-credit shy of his high school diploma. He was getting work from a West Side temp agency, mostly factory jobs but work nonetheless.
But then in May, Rodriguez was arrested by Chicago police. By June he was back in prison.
"It was good while it lasted," he said during a recent interview at Dixon Correctional Center.
Rodriguez's return to the penitentiary may have been swift, but it wasn't unusual. About half of the 30,000 or so inmates released from Illinois prisons each year find themselves back behind bars within three years, corrections officials say.
For those who manage to remain out of prison, they do so with little money and few prospects. Some are forced to live with parents or adult children or in homeless shelters. Back in their old neighborhoods and without a job, they struggle to resist the temptations that led to prison.
"They face difficulty in just about every aspect of life," said Victor Dickson, the president and chief executive officer at the Safer Foundation, the Chicago-based not-for-profit that helps former inmates find jobs and adjust to life back in the outside world. "Unless you have a really strong family -- and most of them don't have that -- this is an almost impossible task to come out with nothing and having to rebuild your life."
As Rodriguez and a handful of other inmates rode the Greyhound back to their Chicago neighborhoods last February, most from the medium-security Vienna Correctional Center in southern Illinois, the Tribune accompanied them to chronicle the journey to freedom. Many had been in prison several times -- as many as five or six times in some cases. In a way, they were emblematic of the great churn of a criminal justice system that leaves inmates ill-equipped to handle life on the outside.
Many of the inmates were hopeful but realistic, knowing they faced long odds. Drug abuse, anger issues, unstable housing, child support debts, limited work histories, little education -- all that and more made the transition a precarious enterprise. Many didn't even have a driver's license or a state ID.
"You get out with $10 or $20 and you spend some of that coming home for cigarettes and food. But then you have to go all over the city to get an ID or whatever else they need," Dickson said. "It's almost a travesty that we release these people understanding the challenges they face but without the assistance they need."
James Knight knew better than to be too hopeful. His February ride home, several rows in front of Rodriguez, was his seventh. With children and grandchildren, he was more than twice as old as Rodriguez and a veteran of the criminal justice system after dozens of arrests, mostly for selling drugs. He knew how easy it was to promise never to return and how easy a vow it was to break.
Knight's son-in-law had picked him up at Chicago's Near West Side bus station, and before going home they went to a Popeye's for chicken and biscuits. After buying a hamburger and cigarettes at stops on the way to Chicago, he had just $1.80 left of the $10 the prison had given him on his release.
He moved in with his daughter and her two children, 16 and 7, in an apartment in a struggling West Side neighborhood, sleeping on the couch in the living room. His three sons gave him some clothes. He had nothing to call his own.
For the first three months, he was stuck at home on electronic monitoring because, like most recently released inmates, he was on parole. With his movement restricted, he could not look for a job. He had been released from prison, but he was not really free.
"I sat there in the house for 90 days," he said in an interview. "I couldn't do nothing."
Unlike inmates who have been exonerated after decades or paroled after lengthy terms, the prisoners who do shorter stints usually do not experience dramatic changes on their return home -- the unfamiliarity with cellphones or computers, an altered city skyline, family losses. Instead, everybody is a little older, the children a little taller, things just a little bit different from when they were sent to prison. Even with a roof over their head and all their street smarts, it can leave them a bit unsteady. That, it seems, was Knight's experience.
"It felt good to be out. I hadn't seen everybody in 2 1/2 years," he said. "But it also felt kind of strange. I don't know why."
Nearly six months after his release, Knight had not been able to find a job. He had gone to temp agencies, he said, and knocked on the doors of local businesses, telling people he was willing to do anything to make a living.
"People don't want to hire people with felonies," he said glumly.
Indeed, a job is key. If a released inmate works, even for just a month, the chances he will return to prison fall dramatically, according to the Safer Foundation. For those who work a full year, the recidivism rate drops to about 15 percent.
"If we don't get them employed within a reasonable amount of time, what do they do to support themselves and their family?" Dickson said. "Out of desperation, they look to other things. But their first thought is not to go back and sell drugs. They don't want to go to prison again."
Knight faced trouble at home, too. His daughter expected him to contribute financially to the struggling family.
"She expected that I'd bring something to the table," he said.
Recently, he said, some of the people he had once sold heroin for approached him to see if he wanted back "in the game." Knight said he declined, but he said they know the struggle he faces.
"I'm trying to do right and not go back to doing what I used to do, but it's hard," he said. "I told them I didn't want to be gone (to prison) again. You have a choice. But they figure you won't get a job and you'll get back to what you were doing before. I'm desperate, but I'm fighting it really hard."
Knight's parole officer drops by his home once a month for 30 to 60 minutes. He gives job-hunting tips to Knight and encourages him to stay away from drugs.
He also must attend a drug treatment program and take regular drug tests. When he is not looking for work, he spends time with his family.
"They say if you can stay out the first 90 days, you have a good chance of making it," he said. "We'll see."
Luis Velez was optimistic he could stay out of prison. At 47, he has five stints behind him for such convictions as armed robbery, possession of a stolen vehicle, aggravated battery, armed violence and theft. His most recent stint lasted less than a year but was his worst, he said, in large part because of conditions in the prison. When he finally boarded the Greyhound, he was ready to come home.
For now, Velez was living with his parents in their West Side bungalow, where he can help take care of them and, when he is working, save money. He had a job doing landscaping but quit because the 10-hour days in the sun were too much for him. Now, he said, he has another job lined up, delivering medical supplies. He plans to start as soon as his car is repaired. He said convicted felons can get jobs if they look hard enough.
"There are companies willing to give us a second chance, but you have to want it," he said. "All that was ever expected of me was I show up ready to work. Some people don't care what kind of stuff you were involved with beforehand."
Velez said his first six months out of prison have been marked by small struggles. He was on electronic monitoring for 60 days, and his parole officer stopped in regularly, leaving him with the knowledge that a misstep could send him back to prison. He said he tries to steer clear of bad influences but acknowledged that they are everywhere.
On learning that Rodriguez had returned to prison, Velez shook his head. He said Rodriguez probably had two or three more stints in him.
"He didn't value his freedom," Velez said. "That's a big mistake. "I know. I made the same mistake."
Rodriguez's prison stint was his first, and while he said Vienna did not break him, it was not without its difficulties. As he rode the bus home, chattering away to the other inmates and cracking jokes, he pledged that he would finish high school and get a job.
Things were going according to plan, he said. Then one day in late May, a friend offered him a ride to school. Rodriguez knew the friend was a gang member. He knew, too, that the friend often carried a gun. The terms of his parole prohibited Rodriguez from hanging out with known gang members and carrying a weapon.
According to police reports, the friend's car was stopped for not having a front license plate. Rodriguez said he told police he was on parole. When officers started to search the car, Rodriguez said, he "knew it was over." Police found marijuana, a .22-caliber revolver and a BB gun. Rodriguez, according to the reports, even told the officers he had marijuana on him.
"I screwed up by just hanging with him. I knew he gang-banged," Rodriguez said. "I should have knew he had a gun somewhere in the car because he can't be nowhere without a gun. ... I was disappointed in myself. Period."
Rodriguez quickly pleaded guilty, saying he believed he could be released sooner if he did so rather than fighting the case. The strategy appeared to work -- he was paroled last week.
Before his release, he talked again of school, of a job, of staying out of trouble. He said it would probably help to get a new set of friends, but he acknowledged that it is tough to walk away from lifelong pals, even those in gangs.
"I could say, 'Yeah, I'm not going to mess with nobody,'" Rodriguez said, staring out a window at the prison. "But we'll see."
smmills@tribpub.com
