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DOJ files statement of interest in Mary Davis Home lawsuit

Jane Carlson
/
Tri States Public Radio

The U.S. Department of Justice has weighed in on conditions at the Mary Davis Juvenile Detention Home in Galesburg, asserting the use of confinement and other practices as alleged by plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit violates the constitutional rights of youth detained there.

In a statement of interest, filed Oct. 25 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, the Justice Department argues the 14th Amendment protects children in juvenile detention facilities from excessive isolation.

The statement further argues that isolating youth causes lasting harm, which is exacerbated when excessive isolation prohibits access to basic needs such as education, mental health care, sleep, and human contact.

“The federal government recognizes that children are developmentally and constitutionally different than adults and that excessive isolation causes children unique and significant harm,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a release. “Harmful conditions of confinement, including isolation, undermine the very purpose of the juvenile justice system, which is to provide children with rehabilitative treatment so they may return to their communities as productive, law-abiding citizens.”

The statement notes that Congress banned the use of isolation on children in federal facilities in 2018.

Clarke said state and local institutions must ensure that children are safe from harmful conditions that violate their constitutional rights and undermine rehabilitation.

“We are committed to enforcing this obligation,” Clarke said.

Over the last year, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has been involved with other cases regarding conditions at youth facilities, securing a settlement agreement in Connecticut, issuing a report over conditions at facilities in Texas, and launching an investigation of conditions at facilities in Kentucky.

The Mary Davis Home is one of 15 county juvenile detention centers in Illinois. It is affiliated with Knox County and is audited annually by the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, but it is under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Judicial Circuit.

Youth as young as 11 years old are detained there but the majority are between the ages of 14 and 18.

ACLU of Illinois, which represents the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit, claims youth endure abusive, extended solitary confinement at the Mary Davis Home despite repeated warnings from the IDJJ to end such practices.

The lawsuit alleges one plaintiff, A.M., spent 23 hours a day in his room on what the facility calls Special Group Status, which requires youth to eat meals in their cells and denies them proper education and recreation.

Defendants — including the chief judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit, the director of court services, and the Mary Davis Home administrator — deny that youth spend the majority of their time in solitary confinement.

The fourth defendant, Knox County, argues county government has no control over the practices at the facility.

The Justice Department’s statement of interest was filed as the plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction requiring the Mary Davis Home to cease isolation of youth while the lawsuit is ongoing.

It asks the court to consider research regarding isolation and confinement of youth and asserts the risk of harm from isolation is “particularly acute” for youth who have already suffered abuse, trauma, and mental issues before they are incarcerated.

The deadline for the defendants to file their response to the preliminary injunction is Jan. 31, 2025.

Jane Carlson is TSPR's regional reporter.