Jermaine Jameson

At age 13, Jermaine had to meet the demands of being the primary caregiver for his younger brother while his mom was away in New York trying to improve their financial circumstances. He now fully understands the enormous weight and consequences of some of the decisions he made as a child: “it affected a lot of people,” he acknowledges. But Jermaine also wants to be seen as more than just his conviction. “Even if you read somebody’s case and whatever he did with x, y, and z, … he can still be a good person,” he says. Jermaine also hopes that communities and organizations invest in resourcing sustainable long-term care to combat crime rather than short-lived and ineffective interventions.

Forced to Grow Up Too Fast

Jermaine grew up in a house with his mother, his stepfather, and his younger brother in Rogers Park, one of the northernmost neighborhoods in Chicago. He recalls that his childhood was pretty normal, up until his early teens. That’s when he experienced a period of significant change, brought about by his mother and stepfather separating. Jermaine explains how important his stepfather was to him: “My dad was my stepdad, he was there for most of my childhood.”

Around that time, at the age of 13 or 14, Jermaine became the head of the household after his mother moved to New York “to try to better our situation.” As he explains it, he was responsible for “taking care of my little brother … surviving, basically.” Suddenly, Jermaine felt significant pressure to make money to support his family. “I felt like I had to get out there to help my mom and save up money,” he says.

Despite his circumstances, Jermaine felt like he had some support. “I had a lot of people that watched me from afar and made sure that I was alright and doing the right thing,” he recalls. “But I was just out there, and it was — at times, it was rough.” His support network included other family members as well as neighbors, and even from afar, his mom “tried to do everything to keep me focused and going to school.” 

Yet, Jermaine was also at the age when he persistently believed that he was mature enough to handle things on his own. “At times, I felt like I could handle a lot of shit that was going on as far as taking care of this person, doing this, doing that,” he explains. “Now I realize … it was a lot of pressure on me, and it led to me doing a lot of stuff. … Money needed to be made.”

Jermaine was 16 years old in March of 1997 when he was involved in an altercation with guns in which he feared for his life. Reeling in the aftermath, he was concerned that his claim of self-defense wouldn’t be taken seriously or even considered by the police. “I didn’t know what to do. My first thought was, ‘Call my mama,’” he says. “I was running for a couple of days. And … that feeling ain’t anything I want to feel [again],” he recalls. “You think you grown, but you’re not. You’re a kid. And now you running for two murders?”

With his aunt by his side, Jermaine eventually decided to turn himself in, but his fears came to fruition. “[The police] put her in the hallway, all that goofy sneaky stuff they do,” he explains, noting that “she didn’t know” that she had the right to be present while Jermaine spoke with police. He told the police the full story of what happened the night of the crime, but they did not view his story with any nuance. “They told me out the door, ‘Look, you might never get out … ain’t no wiggle room here,’” he recalls.

Jermaine and his two co-defendants were tried together at a bench trial, meaning the proceedings took place before a judge only, without a jury. His lawyer did not successfully argue for the lesser second-degree murder charges based on self-defense, so he was charged with — and ultimately convicted of — two first-degree homicides. As Jermaine remembers, at the sentencing the judge said, “‘I ain’t got no choice but to do what I got to do, the law don’t say nothing but give you natural life.’” In other words, due to mandatory sentencing statutes in Illinois at the time, the judge had no discretion in sentencing Jermaine. 

Finding Hope in a Hopeless Place

Jermaine’s trial and post-conviction incarceration in the summer of 1998 tainted events that would have otherwise been joyful. “I got sentenced on my little brother’s birthday. I went to the joint on my birthday,” he says.

Jermaine began his sentence in Illinois state prison at the now-closed Joliet Correctional Center. There, he received some sage advice not long after his arrival. “I met this old dude,” he explains. “He told me, like, ‘Man, look, no matter how much time you got, don’t come in here fucking around. You gotta focus and still try to get out.’” Jermaine sees this as an important intervention. He shares, “I still got in some bullshit, but for the most part I was chill … staying around the right people and trying to stay around positive shit.”

One of the ways that Jermaine coped was by doing his best to take each day one at a time, rather than dwell on the fact he was to spend the rest of his life in prison. He was motivated by focusing on the small chance that he could find a pathway to release, as the older man had advised him, but he also wanted to remain a role model for the brother he helped raise. “[If] I talked to you on the phone, you’re thinking I’m going to come over to your house tomorrow,” he says of his calls with family and friends in prison. “If I didn’t tell you I was in jail, you wouldn’t know I was in jail. That’s how I tried to keep and stay focused and strong for my little brother and everybody who looked up to me.”

Yet staying focused and maintaining some amount of optimism in prison was often a challenge for Jermaine. He remembers several instances when his circumstances felt bleak. “There are times you might not have money, no money,” he explains, because no one sent money. Sometimes the visits were also few and far between. 

Jermaine also recalls the misery of lockdowns, when time outside of cells would be severely limited for all people incarcerated in a given cell block or entire correctional facility. During lockdowns, all rehabilitative and educational programming, visitations, and exercise time are canceled. “[Prison administration] locks you down, nine months, six months, a year at a time straight,” he explains. The reasons for lockdowns vary widely, from safety concerns to staff shortages. 

These periods of lockdown affect nearly all aspects of life in prison, including access to commissary, which is the store inside prison where people who are incarcerated can buy (at a steep markup) food and personal items. Due to the notoriously poor quality of food in prison, many people who are incarcerated rely on food from the commissary to supplement their meals with more calories and better tasting options. No access to commissary means that, on top of the lack of programs and visits during lockdown, “you’re eating bullshit food once your commissary that you tried saving up over time runs out, because you know the situation so you try to keep a little something stashed,” Jermaine says.

Preparing (or Not) For Life on the Outside

In 2012, it was likely that the older man’s advice for Jermaine would become a reality. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in Miller v. Alabama that mandatory juvenile life without parole sentences were unconstitutional. “I literally went to every news station that we had to make sure I wasn’t tweaking,” Jermaine says of hearing the news. 

But Jermaine’s excitement was tempered by cautious realism; he knew that the federal decision still needed to go through state courts and be applied retroactively in order to affect him. “Once Illinois said that should apply to everybody, that’s when I got comfortable and felt like, ‘Okay!’” he explains. He would finally get a chance to go before a judge for a second look at his sentencing. “That’s all I wanted, was … just open the door a little bit. I understand two people lost their lives,” he says. 

After being resentenced and finally given an “out date,” Jermaine was transferred to Kewanee Life Skills Re-Entry Center, a minimum-security prison, to prepare for release. The experience was bittersweet because upon seeing the programs and educational opportunities at this new facility, he understood the incredible disadvantages he had faced while he was serving a life without parole sentence at maximum-security facilities. At Menard Correctional Center, for instance, he tried to get training in the trades. He remembers the conversation starting with, “‘How much time you got? Oh, you got natural life?’” and then abruptly ending. Instead, Jermaine had to take charge of his education himself. “I started really old school and … I learned on my own for my mom.” 

Jermaine found Kewanee to be completely different from Menard. “The way the joint was set up, it was set up for somebody that was coming back to the street and they had all the classes,” he explains. He recalls feeling pressure to catch up, to learn trades and other employable skills before being let out. 

Although Jermaine was excited about new opportunities, he was also frustrated that he’d been deemed unworthy of education and training as someone originally sentenced to die in prison. “I felt like I was behind, even though I was sitting a long time,” he says. “I felt like if I had been in a joint like [Kewanee] or had the opportunities, I’d be in better shape.”

“Just Living Life”

Jermaine was released from prison in late 2021. He still feels the weight of not having had access to the resources and tools to properly prepare for reentry during the entirety of his incarceration, though he’s moving forward one step at a time. “I can’t sit here and say I’m where I want to be or where I should be at this point. I’m still trying to figure [things] out, but I’m cool,” he explains. His focus now is to “stay out of the way, trying to find work, stuff like that. Just living life.” 

After being resentenced and given an out date, Jermaine was able to think about the future in ways he couldn’t while he was living with a life sentence. His aspirations were simple and straightforward: “Get out, have some kids, and chill and live whatever life I got left.” Now that he’s out, he strives to be present in each moment and enjoy aspects of life outside of prison that he never got to experience as an adult. “I just want to get to where I can kick it and have fun, not as a kid, as a grown person, … just relax,” he says.

One of the things Jermaine enjoys most about his new life is getting together with the men he was incarcerated with — outside of the penitentiary. They dreamed big together and those dreams have finally come to fruition. “We always said, ‘Look we’re gonna kick it outside, one of these days we all will kick it.’ And that shit happened. … I damn near be finna cry every time I see these dudes because I just be happy that we’re out,” he says.  

As someone who has spent time inside and outside of prison, Jermaine knows that there’s often an enormous stigma to having spent time in prison. But he is adamant that even someone with a conviction “can still be a good person,” and believes blanket assumptions are incredibly harmful. “Just don’t judge nobody, that’s it: point blank, period,” he insists. 

Jermaine also recognizes — in his case and others’ — the socio-economic causes of crime. A lot of people “want to do the right thing,” he insists. “A lot of people don’t want to be out there selling drugs or doing anything, but that’s what they got to do. That’s what they feel they got to do. … They ain’t got nothing else to do.”

As Jermaine reflects on what kind of resources could have helped him as he was struggling to provide for his family as a young teen, he emphasizes the importance of long-term sustainable care and assistance over short-lived ideas. “Show [people in need] that there’s people out there that really care, man, and are really trying to see them do good and see their families do good.”