By Steve Mills
The Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — 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 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.
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