Dupage Policy Journal

A federal lawsuit charges Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) officials “willfully and wrongly” left dozens of children under the care of the agency locked away in juvenile jails even after some of them had been ordered released to their guardian. 

The lawsuit, filed recently, accuses the DCFS of leaving innocent children behind bars, sometimes for weeks and without proper care, even in cases where a judge had ordered some released into the care of a guardian.

"You don't feel safe,” teenager Janiah Caine told ABC7. “The staff don't make you feel safe either. They're not respectful to you. They treat you like nothing.” 

Caine is one of eight defendants named in the civil rights lawsuit. She contends she was forced to spend months in a juvenile jail on three separate occasions, even though she told investigators she didn’t feel safe and was often treated disrespectfully while in the care of DCFS.

Statistics recently made public by the Office of the Cook County Public Guardian indicate that as recently as in 2021 there were 84 instances of children left locked up for prolonged periods of time with at least seven of them remaining in custody to this day, ABC7 reported.

Cook County Guardian Charles Golbert, who filed the lawsuit, claims the agency routinely leaves children in detention centers for months after their release orders have been signed because they don't have enough staffed beds to house them.

"The Department of Children and Family Services works as quickly as possible to place youth in appropriate and safe settings,” DCFS said in responding to the lawsuit. “Of course, we can only place youth where we have availability that meets their needs, which is why the department is also working to expand the capacity that was hollowed out under previous administrations.”

State Rep. Amy Grant (R-Wheaton) last year called for a “complete overhaul” of DCFS in light of the fact that Director Marc Smith had been issued nearly a dozen contempt of court citations in the first half of 2022, the DuPage Policy Journal reported earlier. Smith is still listed as the director on the agency’s website. 

"In recent years we have made progress in reducing the number of youth who remain in the justice system past the date they are allowed to be released and we are deeply committed to continued progress,” DCFS said.