Juan Hernandez was a teenager when he was sentenced to prison. He was 32 when he finally completed his high school education.
The nearly two decades in between tell a story of bureaucratic barriers, arbitrary rules, and one man’s refusal to give up earning his education.
It’s not unusual for people locked up in the Illinois Department of Corrections to wait years to get into programming, such as GED or college classes. That’s especially true for people serving long sentences for serious crimes, as the state prioritizes enrollment for people who will be released from prison sooner. Hernandez was sentenced to 45 years as a teenager.
But what makes Hernandez’s story unique is the paper trail he kept throughout his fight — the letters he wrote to prison officials asking for access to education, and the responses he received. The documents, which he asked a friend to post on Instagram, offer a rare window into the often-opaque process of prison education waitlists that keep thousands of incarcerated people from accessing education inside.
“I realized education might be a way forward when the administration was adamant in keeping it from me,” Hernandez wrote to WBEZ from Dixon Correctional Center, where he’s currently locked up. At one prison, Juan wrote that he was assigned to a cell house with 1,000 other men – all of whom were barred from education simply because of where they lived.
Officials called the policy only to allow certain units access to classes “an administrative decision” with no further explanation. When he filed a formal prisoner complaint with IDOC – known as a grievance – a prison officer found his complaint “moot.”
When letters and grievances failed to get him access to education, Hernandez escalated to a hunger strike — one of the drastic steps some incarcerated people turn to when other avenues are exhausted. That ended with prison staff attempting to force-feed him, he wrote. He was eventually transferred to a different prison, where the education administrator told him his test scores helped his case – but his release date did not.
The administrator also warned him: “Do NOT go to SEG!” — shorthand for administrative segregation, otherwise known as “the hole,” which is similar to solitary confinement used as punishment for people in prison who get into trouble. Months later, Hernandez was finally enrolled in GED classes and, true to a promise he made in one of his letters, passed the test on his first attempt.
It’s been seven years since then. Hernandez is still waiting to get into college.
In a statement, an Illinois Department of Corrections spokeswoman said increased educational staffing since 2018 has allowed more people in prison to complete the GED program, and that wait times have “decreased significantly.” The average wait time to get into GED classes is less than three months, she said.
Listen to the full story above, where Hernandez tells his story in his own words, read by actor Jomar Lopez, with the Chicago-based Mud Theater Project, who was formerly incarcerated alongside him. The complete collection of documents from Hernandez’s fight can be viewed [here]. You can also see more of Hernandez’s art on his website.
Hernandez’s story, in his own words
Charlotte West is a reporter covering the intersection of higher education and criminal justice for Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education. Sign up for her newsletter, College Inside.