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."