Dozens of other former juvenile detainees file suit over alleged sexual abuse in Illinois detention centers

Dozens of other former juvenile detainees have filed lawsuits seeking millions of dollars in damages for sexual abuse they allegedly suffered in Illinois detention centers dating back to the late 1990s.

Thirteen women and 95 men filed two separate lawsuits Friday in the Illinois Court of Claims against the state Department of Corrections and the state Department of Juvenile Justice. Each plaintiff is seeking $2 million in damages, the maximum allowed by law.

“This is simply outrageous misconduct by the state of Illinois and the juvenile justice system that has persisted for decades and must stop,” Jerome Block, the state's attorney general, said Monday. one of the lawyers of the former detainees, during a press conference.

There was no immediate response Monday morning to an email seeking comment from the two agencies.

The files are replete with disturbing allegations that guards, teachers and counselors at eight juvenile detention centers across the state sexually assaulted inmates between 1997 and 2019. Often, the same attackers molested the same children for months, sometimes offering to reduce their sentence or give them time. snacks or extra free time in exchange for their silence, according to the lawsuits.

One complainant said she was 15 when she was housed in a detention center in Warrenville in 2012. A guard groped her under her clothes and, on another occasion, tried to rape her in a shower. The guard said he would put her in solitary confinement if she told anyone. The woman went on to allege that another guard sexually assaulted her in a bathroom and then gave her a Butterfinger candy bar.

A plaintiff said he was 13 when he was held in a St. Charles detention center in 1997. Two guards gave him food, extra time outside his cell and extra time in front of the television as a reward for having sex with them. alleged. When he reported the abuse, guards locked him in his cell as punishment, he said. The complainant said he was transferred to two other detention centers in Warrenville and Valley View. The guards at these centers also groped him.

The lawsuits note that a 2013 U.S. Department of Justice survey of incarcerated youth found that Illinois was one of the four most dangerous states in the nation for sexual abuse in detention centers .

Lawyers for former juvenile detainees have filed similar lawsuits across the country.

Last month, they filed a lawsuit on behalf of 95 other former inmates who allege they were sexually assaulted in Illinois juvenile detention centers between 1997 and 2017. Each of these plaintiffs is also seeking $2 million . The state Department of Justice said in a statement responding to the lawsuit that these alleged incidents took place under former department heads. The current administration takes youth safety seriously and all allegations of staff misconduct are investigated by other agencies, including the State Police, the department said.

Block said at the news conference that blaming past administrations is not the same as taking responsibility. Such severe and widespread sexual abuse cannot occur without neglect, he said, and he has seen nothing to indicate that conditions in juvenile centers have improved.

The three lawsuits filed in Illinois bring the total number of plaintiffs to more than 200.

Lawyers for the inmates also filed suit in Pennsylvania in May, alleging that 66 people, now adults, were victimized by guards, nurses and supervisors in that state's juvenile detention system. The suits in Illinois and Pennsylvania follow other actions in Maryland, Michigan and New York City.

Some cases have gone to trial or resulted in settlements, but arrests have been rare.

In New Hampshire, more than 1,100 former residents of the state's youth detention center have filed lawsuits since 2020, alleging physical or sexual abuse over a six-decade span. The first lawsuit went to trial last month and a jury awarded the plaintiff $38 million, although the amount remains controversial. Eleven former officials have been arrested and more than 100 others are named in the lawsuits.