An Illinois youth lockup is “no place for children,” argued a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in June. A brand new ProPublica and Capitol Information Illinois evaluation of paperwork from the lawsuit and a number of other state audits, amongst different data, discovered that incarcerated youngsters have often been topic to “troubling conditions” in additional than a dozen youth detention facilities in Illinois.
In these services, youth have been “tased, pepper sprayed and roughed up by staff and law enforcement officers; forced into isolation for days at a time,” based on the ProPublica and Capitol Information Illinois evaluation. Incarcerated youth have additionally been “denied access to their psychotropic medications and mental health treatment; and received little or no schooling, despite state and federal laws mandating that the youth receive educational services while incarcerated.”
Regardless of widespread points, one facility stands out: “Perhaps nowhere are concerns as extensive as those documented at the 32-bed youth lockup in Benton,” the evaluation reads, pointing to the Franklin County Juvenile Detention Heart (FCJDC).
The ACLU’s grievance alleges that situations on the FCJDC are dire. “Solitary confinement is the rule, not the exception, for children at FCJDC. Day in and day out, these children spend between 20 and 23 hours per day confined in their cells. Defendants often eliminate even the brief window of time these children are allowed to leave their cells, imposing 24-hour ‘lockdown’ solitary confinement as an enhanced form of punishment.”
The go well with additionally alleges that the FCJDC leaves the fluorescent lights on in youngsters’s cells for twenty-four hours a day and that the cells themselves are often soiled and infested with black mould.
In accordance with the ACLU, a very disturbing incident passed off final December wherein a boy’s arm was damaged when law enforcement officials within the facility tried to restrain him. As an alternative of instantly receiving medical care, the boy alleged that he was saved in handcuffs and needed to wait for 2 hours earlier than he was taken to the hospital—whereas workers made dinner and took different youth to recreation actions.
“The officer asked me about my arm and I said ‘You know it’s broken. You heard it snap,'” the boy mentioned in a signed assertion, based on ProPublica. “They still kept me handcuffed [and] put me in my room that way.”
“For years, Defendants have maintained these conditions in the face of multiple public warnings that the facility is an unfit environment for children,” reads the ACLU grievance. “Some judges and state’s attorneys from neighboring counties reportedly have refused to commit children for detention at FCJDC due to the conditions there.”
In 2022, a state audit discovered that the power was “in crisis.” The report detailed staggering solitary confinement practices and famous that “the staffing levels at the facility are extremely low and directly impact conditions of confinement for youth that are well-below minimum standards. On the date of the inspection, the facility only employed eight full-time staff and four part-time staff.”
In accordance with ProPublica and Capital Information Illinois, a driving trigger behind the dismissal situations is a widespread lack of accountability for particular person services.
“Under state law, the [Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (IDJJ)] cannot mandate corrective action plans, issue fines or shut down detention centers found in repeated violation of the rules,” reads the evaluation. “Instead, the IDJJ reports are sent back to the county detention facilities’ staff and to the chief judges of each judicial circuit, under whose authority they operate. Neither the staff nor the judges are obligated to respond.”
Underneath this established order, it is hardly shocking how such dismal situations for incarcerated youth can proceed—or why a federal lawsuit has been launched to power improved practices at FCJDC specifically.
“The Franklin County [audit] reports were pretty scathing, and we would have expected more action in response to those reports,” Kevin Price, an lawyer with the ACLU of Illinois advised ProPublica. “But we didn’t see any, which is why we felt the need to bring the lawsuit.”
Illinois is hardly alone in incarcerating youth in abysmal situations. In a very galling instance, a Texas facility got here below hearth final yr for conserving youngsters equally locked of their cells for lengthy stretches of time, leaving youth with out entry to bogs for so long as 22 hours on finish. At the moment, Philadelphia is mounting a lawsuit in opposition to the state of Pennsylvania after overcrowding in a Philadelphia-area juvenile jail has induced filthy situations and elevated violence inside the facility.