Four staff members and five juveniles were injured Wednesday night at the Mary Davis Juvenile Detention Home in Galesburg in what officials describe as a disturbance that escalated into a riot.
The incident began around 7:35 p.m. when a group of juveniles detained at the facility “became combative,” according to a release from the Knox County Sheriff’s Office.
The situation escalated quickly, prompting a response from facility staff and local law enforcement.
“The facility was secured and the incident was contained within. There is no current threat to the surrounding community. The safety and security of both staff and youth remain the top priority,” the Sheriff’s Office said.
This was the second riot at the facility in less than 15 months. Eight staff members and two juveniles were injured in a March 2024 incident.
Violence at the Mary Davis Home comes as a federal lawsuit against the facility is ongoing — and as an annual audit by the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice found the facility to again be out of compliance with state standards on confinement and other issues.
IDJJ standards mandate that room confinement can be used only as a temporary response to behavior that threatens the safety of the youth or others. It cannot be used for a fixed period of time as punishment, but only until the youth is calm enough to join regular activities.
The audit found the Mary Davis Home has made some improvements to the amount of youth confinement in recent years, but is still confining youth for too long — and also failed to accurately document the use of confinement.
“In July of 2024, facility administrators reported there had not been any confinements during the month. However, a review of behavior hold documentation revealed there were at least four confinement instances lasting from 30-90 minutes that should have been reported. Administrators did update that submission when the auditor shared the finding,” the audit reads.
In addition, the audit found one juvenile was inappropriately confined for four hours and that the facility continues to utilize confinement when they are short-staffed, despite having the highest number of staff members in several years and capping the youth population at 12.
The Mary Davis Home is one of 16 county-level juvenile detention centers in Illinois. It is affiliated with Knox County and audited under new standards established by IDJJ in 2022, but it is under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Judicial Circuit.
The federal class action lawsuit also alleges harmful and excessive use of confinement, even though the facility failed multiple audits and received warnings to end the practice.
It was filed last year in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois.
Tri States Public Radio produced this story. TSPR relies on financial support from our readers and listeners in order to provide coverage of the issues that matter to west central Illinois, southeast Iowa, and northeast Missouri. As someone who values the content created by TSPR's news department please consider making a financial contribution.
