CHICAGO– Child sexual abuse in Illinois juvenile detention centers was widespread and systemic for decades, according to disturbing accounts in a lawsuit filed Monday by 95 men and women housed in juvenile centers as children.
The lawsuit details alleged incidents of abuse from 1996 to 2017, including gang rape, forced oral sex, beatings and groping of children by corrections officers, sergeants, nurses, therapists, a chaplain and others at nine juvenile centers. Many plaintiffs said they were threatened or rewarded to remain silent.
“The State of Illinois has allowed a culture of abuse in Illinois Youth Centers to flourish unabated,” the 186-page complaint said.
The lawsuit, filed in the Illinois Court of Claims, follows similar harrowing allegations of child sexual abuse at juvenile detention centers in Maryland, New Jersey, New Hampshire, California and New York. Some cases went to trial or resulted in settlements; arrests have been rare.
The Illinois lawsuit claims the state failed to supervise, discipline, remove or investigate alleged abusers, allowing the abuse to continue. The complaint alleges that the abuse happened in juvenile halls in locations across the state, including Chicago, Joliet, Harrisburg, Murphysboro and Warrenville. Since then, several locations have closed.
The lawsuit names the state of Illinois, the Department of Corrections and the state Department of Juvenile Justice as defendants. He seeks damages of about $2 million per plaintiff, the maximum allowed by law.
Messages left Monday with the governor’s office and both corrections agencies were not immediately returned.
The 95 plaintiffs are among hundreds of victims of sexual abuse in Illinois detention centers, said Jerome H. Block, an attorney who brought the case and who hopes to file more lawsuits. His company helped bring lawsuits in Maryland, New Jersey and New York.
“The same people who were tasked with keeping our clients safe when they were children were the ones who perpetrated sexual abuse,” Block said. “This is long-term, institutionalized sexual abuse.”
The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they agree to be identified or choose to tell their stories publicly.
Three of the 95 plaintiffs are named in the lawsuit, including Jeffery Christian of Maywood, who said it was important to speak out publicly because he felt it could help others who may be suffering in silence.
The 36-year-old from suburban Chicago said he was sexually abused at two different detention centers when he was about 13, including by a counselor who groped and fondled him during counseling sessions.
Like many of the plaintiffs, Christian said the abuse was reported at the time, but facility administrators did nothing to address the problem. He said reporting the abuse made him another target. After the incidents, he became withdrawn and antisocial.
“It prepared me to start looking at the world differently,” he said. “It took some light out of me.”
At least six detention center workers — including a current mayor of a small southern Illinois community — were identified in the lawsuit as alleged repeat offenders, with separate accusations from different plaintiffs. Some alleged infringers are named in the lawsuit, while others are identified only because the plaintiffs remember them by physical attributes, initials or nicknames. Most plaintiffs are identified by their initials in the complaint.
Among other things, the complaint blames the state’s use of unconstitutional and systemic searches as perpetration of sexual abuse.
“The State of Illinois has been aware of such abuses for decades and yet has neglected to protect its confined youth from sexual abuse and has failed to implement the necessary policies to ensure such protection,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit cites a 2013 U.S. Department of Justice survey of incarcerated youth that found Illinois was among the four worst states in the country for sexual abuse in detention centers. It also records about half a dozen criminal cases between 2000 and 2021 in which youth center staff were convicted of sexually abusing children and alleges that the abuse continues to this day.
The alleged repeat offenders include Rocky James, a longtime supervisor from downtown Harrisburg who currently serves as mayor of neighboring Eldorado in southern Illinois, according to the lawsuit. Six plaintiffs separately allege that James abused them in the 2000s, including a teenager who was “regularly and physically coerced” into having sex inside his cell and in the bathroom, he said.
James, a former Eldorado city councilman and Saline County Council member, has served as mayor of the town of about 3,500 since 2007. He has not been accused of wrongdoing.
When reached by phone on Monday, James, 59, said it was the first time he had heard the allegations.
“There is absolutely no truth to this,” he said, declining further comment.
Criminal charges are not out of the realm of possibility in some of the more recent cases. While there is no longer a statute of limitations for crimes related to the sexual abuse of minors that occurred after January 1, 2020, a 20-year limit remains for alleged crimes committed before then, allowing for the possibility of criminal charges in cases that allegedly occurred. already in 2004.
Many complainants stated that their abusers threatened them with violence, solitary confinement, transfers to harsher facilities, and longer sentences if they reported the abuse. Others received extra food, money in their commissary accounts, the opportunity to play video games and other rewards if they remained silent.
The complainants were between 12 and 17 years old at the time they said they were abused, often while isolated in a bathroom, kitchen or in their cells. When detainees reported abuse, the lawsuit said they were ridiculed, with a lieutenant saying, “He’s just joking,” or a chaplain telling a 17-year-old boy he allegedly fondled and was upset with: “This is what happens. ” at church.
They are now adults, with the oldest in his 40s. Most are men, but one of the detention centers was mixed. They come from small communities and big cities, mostly in Illinois. Several are from Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa and Texas.
“Children detained in juvenile detention centers are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse. This is because the staff who work in these juvenile detention centers have total and complete control over these children,” Block said. “There is no way for these children to escape abuse.”
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Associated Press writer John O’Connor contributed to this report from Springfield.
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