Juan Hernandez was a youngster when he was sentenced to jail. He was 32 when he lastly accomplished his highschool schooling.
The almost 20 years in between inform a narrative of bureaucratic obstacles, arbitrary guidelines, and one man’s refusal to surrender incomes his schooling.
It’s common for individuals locked up within the Illinois Division of Corrections to attend years to get into programming, corresponding to GED or faculty courses. That’s very true for individuals serving lengthy sentences for severe crimes, because the state prioritizes enrollment for individuals who will likely be launched from jail sooner. Hernandez was sentenced to 45 years as a youngster.
However what makes Hernandez’s story distinctive is the paper path he stored all through his struggle — the letters he wrote to jail officers asking for entry to schooling, and the responses he acquired. The paperwork, which he requested a pal to put up on Instagram, supply a uncommon window into the often-opaque means of jail schooling waitlists that maintain hundreds of incarcerated individuals from accessing schooling inside.
“I noticed schooling is perhaps a manner ahead when the administration was adamant in retaining it from me,” Hernandez wrote to WBEZ from Dixon Correctional Middle, the place he’s presently locked up. At one jail, Juan wrote that he was assigned to a cell home with 1,000 different males – all of whom had been barred from schooling merely due to the place they lived.
Officers known as the coverage solely to permit sure models entry to courses “an administrative resolution” with no additional clarification. When he filed a proper prisoner criticism with IDOC – generally known as a grievance – a jail officer discovered his criticism “moot.”
When letters and grievances didn’t get him entry to schooling, Hernandez escalated to a starvation strike — one of many drastic steps some incarcerated individuals flip to when different avenues are exhausted. That ended with jail workers trying to force-feed him, he wrote. He was ultimately transferred to a special jail, the place the schooling administrator advised him his check scores helped his case – however his launch date didn’t.
The administrator additionally warned him: “Do NOT go to SEG!” — shorthand for administrative segregation, in any other case generally known as “the outlet,” which has similarities to solitary confinement used as punishment for individuals in jail who get into hassle. Months later, Hernandez was lastly enrolled in GED courses and, true to a promise he made in one in all his letters, handed the check on his first try.
It’s been seven years since then. Hernandez continues to be ready to get into faculty.
In an announcement, an Illinois Division of Corrections spokeswoman mentioned elevated instructional staffing since 2018 has allowed extra individuals in jail to finish the GED program, and that wait occasions have “decreased considerably.” The common wait time to get into GED courses is lower than three months, she mentioned.
Hearken to the complete story above, the place Hernandez tells his story in his personal phrases, learn by actor Jomar Lopez, with the Chicago-based Mud Theater Mission, who was previously incarcerated alongside him. The entire assortment of paperwork from Hernandez’s struggle could be seen [here]. You may as well see extra of Hernandez’s artwork on his web site.
Hernandez’s story, in his personal phrases
Charlotte West is a reporter protecting the intersection of upper schooling and legal justice for Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom centered on larger schooling. Join her e-newsletter, School Inside.
