The Chicago Reporter articles from March 2007

The Chicago Reporter archives from March 2007

Children are sentenced, too.(Editor's Note: Reporter News)(Editorial)
March 1, 2007... In one family, children take birthday cakes to the downstate prison where their mother lives to celebrate with her. Another family hopes its young adult son will stay out of trouble when he is released from prison, instead of idolizing his...

Children of the incarcerated.(Editor's Note: Reporter News)
March 1, 2007... Across the nation, children of the incarcerated, as much as their parents, bear the consequences of misdeeds or mistakes. They are disproportionately poor, African American and Latino and, for many, their lives are shaped by the same cycle of...

Casey Sanchez.(Reporter News)
March 1, 2007... Reporter Casey Sanchez left the Reporter to join the staff of the Intelligence Report at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., where he covers issues of bigotry and racism across the country.

Alden K. Loury.(Reporter News)
March 1, 2007... Senior Editor Alden K. Loury was chosen as a Jennings Fellow in the inaugural Peter Jennings Project for Journalists and the Constitution, aimed at fostering a deeper understanding of these issues and funded by the Annenberg Foundation.

At the top of their game.(SPINOFFS: Keeping Current)
March 1, 2007... The news: On Feb. 28, Chicago Bears head coach Lovie Smith signed a four-year contract extension worth $22 million. Behind the news: Just as Smith and Tony Dungy became the first African-American head coaches in the National...

Is he 'black enough'?: time to get over it.(SPINOFFS: Keeping Current)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... The news: According to newspapers from coast to coast, many African Americans are asking: "Is Barack Obama black enough?" Behind the news: Some have aimed this question at Obama because he is not the descendant of slaves, or...

Lenders shunned ZIPs before law.(SPINOFFS: Keeping Current)
March 1, 2007... The news: On Jan. 19, Gov. Rod Blagojevich suspended HB4050, a pilot law designed to protect homeowners in 10 Chicago ZIP codes from predatory lenders. Behind the news: For months, critics lambasted HB4050 saying that the...

Rising home values offset by high-interest loans.(SPINOFFS: Keeping Current)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... The news: In the 60620 ZIP code, home values rose 12.2 percent during the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, 2006, the largest increase of any Chicago-area ZIP code during that span. Behind the news: The benefits of increasing...

Hands-on education: local program helps Chicago youth discover the past--and themselves--in Ghana, Africa.(Q&A: Lanette Stigsen)(Interview)
March 1, 2007... Lanette Stigsen was at work when she overheard a man tell a co-worker about his trip to Africa. He had spent the last year selecting youth from high schools across Chicago and flying them to a continent unfamiliar to them--but from which some...

Uncounted and unseen: tens of thousands of children have parents in prison. Many people call these children 'crime's invisible victims.' Institutions trying to help are often disconnected from these families and each other.(Children of the Incarcerated)(Cover story)
March 1, 2007... Even though he was just 4 years old, Jimmy still remembers his mother's expression on the cold winter afternoon when two white men in black suits led her away. "I could tell she was sad, but she tried to smile," says Jimmy, now a sturdy...

Keeping connected: church-based agency helps female inmates maintain ties with families.(Best Practices)
March 1, 2007... Denise Bailey-Gordon moved off of the wooden bleachers and past a volleyball net, her face exploding with joy as she approached her family. Her blue eye shadow matching her shirt and pants, her hair prepared in an artful curl,...

Mom without me: a 14-year-old boy struggles to come to terms with his mother's crime, punishment and absence.(Family Profiles)(Charmain Cook,)
March 1, 2007... The 6-year-old boy scrubbed the towel back and forth against the kitchen floor to remove the dried blood from the grout between several feet of white tiles. It was two days after Easter. And earlier that day, the boy, Brian, was at home with...

Adjusting to home: the effects of a mother's incarceration last well beyond her release date.(Family Profiles)(Sharee Williams, Brittany Brown)
March 1, 2007... Brittany Brown didn't want to wake up on the morning of May 28, 1999. Sharee Williams, her mother, had told her many times that she was going to prison, but Brittany says now that she was too young to understand. Eventually, Williams roused the...

Just one question: no longer a child, a former inmate's daughter deals with father's absence.(Family Profiles)
March 1, 2007... On a rainy winter morning, Nicole sat across the table from her father in the living room of his Englewood apartment. Sitting upright in a chair with her legs crossed at the ankles as if she had attended charm school, Nicole positioned herself...

Father's footsteps: ex-offender unable to steer his son from the same wrong turns he made.
March 1, 2007... This is a story about "Belushi" and "Little Belushi"--Manuel Feliciano and his son Jovanny. This story takes place inside the Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, just like the film "The Blues Brothers." But unlike the film, this story...

Coalition of Immokalee Workers.(PARTING SHOT)
March 1, 2007... March 20, 2007 Volunteers for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers construct protest art in preparation for a rally in April to fight against McDonald's wages that leave U.S. tomato pickers in deep poverty. The group is demanding that...