Youth as young as ten years old are housed at the Mary Davis Home while awaiting sentencing in the court system or while serving their sentences.
The juvenile detention center sits at the corner of Locust and Fifth streets on the southeast side of Galesburg.
The large, brick building is bordered by cornfields on two sides. It has a library, a gymnasium, and a mural that runs the length of the cafeteria.
It is one of 16 county juvenile detention centers in Illinois.
The history of the facility dates back more than a century. In 1913, philanthropist Mary Davis McKnight donated a lot and house across from the Knox County courthouse to be used as a detention home for youth.
“Our job is to keep them safe and secure while they’re here,” said Administrator Wendi Steck. “What we want to do through programming is change their thoughts, their beliefs, and their choices to something more positive.”
Steck fell in love with the work while doing an internship with Knox County Probation and never left. She’s been there 31 years.
Generational effects
The majority of youth housed at the Mary Davis Home are between the ages of 14 and 18 and stay there anywhere from a few days to a few years. The 39-bed facility typically houses 19 or 20 youth.
“We think that it’s a safer alternative and we can better serve our kids by keeping our numbers lower,” Steck said.
The Mary Davis Home serves Knox, Fulton, Hancock, Henderson, McDonough, and Warren counties in the Ninth Judicial Circuit and Rock Island, Henry, Mercer, and Whiteside counties in the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit.
But when they have openings, they will take youth from all over the state.
The Mary Davis Home is affiliated with Knox County. It receives funding from the Administrative Office of Illinois Courts, the Illinois State Board of Education, Knox County, and the other counties that house youth there.
While they are striving to abide by new standards from the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice implemented in 2022, the Mary Davis Home is not under the jurisdiction of any state agency but the Ninth Judicial Circuit.
Steck said it’s a rewarding and challenging job for staff who have to develop rapport with troubled youth and de-escalate potentially violent situations.
“Because we don’t have weapons here, all we have is our mouths and we use our words as much as possible,” Steck said.
Over the years, she said she has seen youth become more physically aggressive, less respectful, and the crimes they’re charged with grow more severe.
Three months ago, eight staff members and two youth were injured in what the sheriff’s office described as a riot inside the facility.
Bridget Pletz, director of court services for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, said many of the youth live in poverty and in difficult family situations before they come to the Mary Davis Home.
“Over the years I’ve seen the generational effects. I had their parents on probation or their grandparents on probation. And now you’re seeing the kids and grandkids come in,” she said.
Pletz has worked in probation since the late 1980s. For her, the work is about breaking the cycle through counseling, mentoring, and hands-on activities, like playing basketball, gardening, and tie-dying t-shirts.
This year, they also had a Juneteenth celebration.
“They come in here sometimes with a chip on their shoulder. And it’s just us trying to knock that chip off, so to speak, so that they do change their behavior. So when they leave here, they can be productive out there in society,” she said.
New standards
The new standards for county juvenile detention centers were approved in 2021 and went into effect at the beginning of 2022.
At that time, the Mary Davis Home still strip-searched all youth during intake as a safety precaution for other youth and for staff.
But since the first audit from the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice in February of 2022, that is no longer practiced. Staff may only strip-search youth with reasonable suspicion of weapons or contraband and with permission from an administrator.
The first year under the new standards, the Mary Davis Home was out of compliance in eight areas – hygiene, food, discipline, education, staffing, admission procedures, medical care, and mental health care.
Steck said there were not state standards for most of those things prior to 2022. For example, there were no state requirements for mental health services inside county juvenile detention centers. The former standards dating back to 1998 primarily dealt with the physical conditions of the facilities.
“When we would receive inspections, they would come and make sure that our toilets worked and our water worked, and the kids were being fed. And that was the end of our inspections. So it was a huge overhaul,” she said.
Steck said it has taken time to implement all that’s required under the new standards, which were updated to reflect current practices in discipline and confinement and the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
“You can’t just change everything overnight. Because chaos would ensue,” she said.
Moving towards compliance
In 2022, IDJJ found only four of 16 county juvenile detention centers to be in full compliance with the new standards. The juvenile detention center in Franklin County has since closed.
Since the new standards were implemented, the Mary Davis Home has significantly improved medical, education, and mental health services. There are motivational posters and new furniture to brighten up the space.
They implemented an incentive-based program where youth can buy things like candy bars and fuzzy blankets in the new “Mary Mart” inside the facility.
In 2023, the Mary Davis Home was out of compliance in four areas: discipline, education, admission procedures, and mental health services. This year, they were down to two areas of non-compliance: discipline and education.
The 2024 IDJJ audit states the Mary Davis Home has made many improvements in the area of discipline, specifically the use of confinement.
But the new standards mandate that confinement cannot be used for fixed periods of time. Instead, it can be only used until the youth is calm enough to re-join regular activities.
With behavior issues and staffing shortages, Steck said that has been difficult to achieve there.
“It’s not that we’re keeping kids in their rooms willy-nilly. It’s that we’re trying to make sure that they’re safe,” Steck said.
In this year's IDJJ audit, several youth reported only coming out of their rooms for dinner recreation time.
On the education side, the standards require one teacher for every 12 youth and one teacher for every eight students with Individualized Education Programs.
“Finding a special education teacher has been the biggest challenge that we’ve had,” Steck said. “We do have someone for the fall that will be a great addition.”
Both of the remaining areas of non-compliance were tied to staffing issues.
With a teacher shortage, general workforce challenges, and the demanding aspects of working with troubled youth, it’s been difficult to recruit and keep staff.
To address that and help move toward compliance, the Mary Davis Home increased salaries and waived bachelor’s degree requirements for counselors. To work there, counselors only have to have completed a certain number of college credit hours.
Changing choices
Outside of the Mary Davis Home, people may see three years of non-compliance with new state standards.
They may see the riot that made headlines, or a recent federal class action lawsuit from the ACLU on behalf of several youth there claiming inhumane confinement and living conditions.
Steck said the public may have misconceptions about what they do at the Mary Davis Home.
“We’re not locking kids behind doors. We’re working with our kids. We’re playing basketball with them. We’re playing cards. We’re talking to them just one on one about their family and their home life,” she said. “We’re trying to have fun with them and trying to get them to change their choices.”
Steck said moving toward compliance with the new standards has been challenging but it’s making the Mary Davis Home a better place for youth and for staff.
“Obviously our goal is to become in compliance with all of the standards. That’s always been the goal. And we will do it,” she said.
Note: This story was updated June 23 to include that several youth reported to IDJJ in 2024 they were only allowed out of their rooms for dinner recreation time.
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