By Robert Schultz, Prison Journalism Project
April 9, 2024

Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote, “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” 

Then what can be said of a society that sends teenagers to prison?

In 2009, when I was 17 years old, I got involved in gang violence and was soon charged with first-degree murder. I’ve had many family members and friends who were locked up, which led me to expect incarceration for myself. Initially, I assumed I would face 20 to 60 years and only serve half my sentence.

I was sent to an adult division of the Cook County Jail in Chicago — even though I was just a teenager at the time. Then I learned that my prediction was wrong. I was informed that I was facing a 45-to-85-year sentence to be served fully, without parole or early release. Not once during my trial and sentencing did I appear before a juvenile court or stay in a juvenile detention center. My route to prison was the same path taken by adults.

A young man goes to prison

I fought my case from the county jail for two years. Most of it was spent anxiously waiting for a miracle. My lawyer attempted legal maneuvers to help me, but nothing was successful. Eventually, my co-defendant agreed to testify against me, and my lawyer advised me to plead guilty if the state agreed to waive a gun enhancement charge. In Illinois, if an adult uses a gun to murder someone, an additional 25 years is added to their sentence. 

In March 2012, at the age of 20, I pleaded guilty. I was given a 25-year sentence with no opportunity for parole or early release. 

From there, I was sent to Menard Correctional Center, a maximum security prison, where many inmates were 20 to 30 years older than me. Many of those men had also been sent to prison as teenagers or young adults.  

The prison was about six hours southwest of my hometown of Chicago. It provided little programming and had a reputation for violence. 

From the moment I entered the cell house, I was overwhelmed by how loud it was. Everyone was yelling over each other. It was only quiet at night, when I lay in bed and thought about all the opportunities and moments I had lost, and all the opportunities and moments I had yet to lose.

Constantly pondering these dark outcomes caused me to slip into depression for the first several months of my sentence. Every little thing began to irritate me, and I would let that irritation build to the point of combustion. There was no relief. I became a short-tempered person who reacted irrationally to small inconveniences even if they didn’t directly affect me much. This led to fights between cellmates and friction with my family.   

Lingering mental scars

The experience of prison at such a young age has nearly broken me. Mental scars still linger today. My lack of experiences outside of prison makes me feel insecure about my ability to be successful in a career, maintain mature relationships and have a fulfilling life after prison. I feel like I have to get all those things right on the first try because I don’t have many more chances if I fail. 

The idea of reentering the outside world makes me anxious. I read books aimed at helping people manage their thoughts. I have also found that sharing these thoughts with a group of people can be helpful. It’s comforting to know that I’m not alone and that others are attempting to overcome these same obstacles.

Throughout my incarceration, I have experienced weeks of hopelessness that I couldn’t escape. During these times, my mind raced whenever I tried to sleep. I would once again fall into deep thought about opportunities I had missed. 

Three years into my sentence, I went to a doctor. He told me I was dealing with anxiety and depression. This was new for me. Fear and sadness were never ruling emotions in my life. Before prison, I was often cheerful and energetic — someone who could brighten up a room. I didn’t know how to process my circumstances. 

These are common emotions for juveniles who are sent to adult prisons. According to a report last year from The Sentencing Project, youth detention facilities expose young people to abuse and impede their educational and career success. These youth are far more likely to have depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts than their peers who are not incarcerated. 

In other words, prison can create problems for young people that didn’t exist before. As of 2017, Illinois had about 1,100 people serving sentences that stemmed from an offense committed as a juvenile, according to a report from Restore Justice, a nonprofit focused on reforming the Illinois criminal legal system.

More reform needed

The national picture is even more astounding, although real progress has been made. Around 2001, almost 250,000 juveniles were tried as adults nationwide, according to The Sentencing Project. By 2019, that number had dropped to 53,000 youth. A massive improvement for sure, but prisons are still causing harmful mental consequences for the teenagers and young adults who grow old within them.

When I went to prison, Illinois had an automatic transfer law that allowed juveniles younger than 16 to be prosecuted as adults for a number of offenses. Reforms in 2015 raised the minimum age that someone can be tried as an adult to 16 years old, and narrowed the offenses. Now, to be tried as an adult, people must be at least 16 and on trial for first-degree murder, aggravated criminal sexual assault or aggravated battery with a firearm.

Illinois has ended gun enhancement sentences for juveniles. And the state has banned life-without-parole sentences for most juveniles who received their sentences after May 2019. But there is much work to do. Truth in sentencing, which requires offenders to serve substantial parts of their sentences and reduces the possibility of parole and earning good-time credit, still prevents many juveniles from earning time off of their sentences. 

And as important as some of these changes have been, they are for the most part not being applied retroactively. There is a 20-year gap for youth sentenced under the old rules who still have to serve their sentences under the harsher laws. 

I am one of these people. We are being kept in prisons for decades or a lifetime — well after we have grown into an adult and become a completely different person from the one who arrived at prison. It seems like folks on the outside have forgotten about us.

These changes would have helped me when I was sentenced by allowing my case to be reviewed by a juvenile court judge. That judge could have made the decision to try me as a juvenile. Instead, I was automatically tried as an adult. 

If these reforms were in place then, I would not have been facing up to 85 years in prison, the de-facto life sentence that influenced me to plead guilty in exchange for a shorter term. Instead, if I went to trial, I would have faced 40 years at most.

Most importantly, I would have had the ability to appear before a parole board after five years in prison. Instead, my 25-year sentence came with no chance at parole.

What comes next?

It’s tough to grow up in prison. I have tried to discover and define myself among people who are years older than me. There is rarely hope for a future on the outside beyond harder, lower-paying jobs, unless I find a different path for myself. Even if I find a good job, I believe I’ll still struggle with a lack of confidence for the rest of my life because of how young I was when I received this too-long sentence. It’s challenging to talk to my family about what I’ve been through because I don’t want to scare them. 

But we still have an opportunity to make things better. We need to divert our youth away from incarceration. And for those who already have been locked up, we need to consider that many of them will be released after years in prison, coming home profoundly damaged after spending formative years behind bars. I worry that if we don’t support them, they’ll fail to adjust during reentry and self-sabotage whenever they have a chance at happiness. 

The earliest I can leave prison is 2035. I will be 43 years old. I filed for clemency in 2020 because parole doesn’t exist as an option for me. On my application, I asked the governor to consider what life I am expected to live after coming to prison as a teenager and spending the next 25 years of my life behind bars. 

After all this time, once I return to the outside world, who am I supposed to be? Who does society want me to be?

This article first appeared on Prison Journalism Project and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Robert Schultz is a writer incarcerated in Illinois.

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