Harsh Treatment - Chicago Tribune

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Harsh Treatment

Residential treatment centers are supposed to provide a safe, healing environment for young state wards and disadvantaged children. But a Chicago Tribune investigation finds many are harmed instead.

DCFS stops placements, steps up monitoring at living center for youths

State child welfare officials have stopped sending juvenile wards to a troubled Rockford residential facility following Tribune reports that youths inside the center were assaulted and lured into prostitution. More

Part 1: Far from a home
Children have been attacked and abused at taxpayer-funded residential centers; thousands flee to the streets. But Illinois continues to send state wards there.
'I was getting punched, kicked'
Records and interviews uncover a startling record of violence, sexual assaults and running away at a Rockford facility for girls with behavior problems.
Growing up in residential care
"I feel like they took my life away," says an Illinois teen who was shuttled among six facilities for a decade, beginning at age 8.
Living through it, speaking out
Young women who used to live at Rock River Academy tell of being beaten by peers upon arrival, of running away, of being mocked and ignored by staff.
Part 2: Crime flows into the streets
Preyed on by peers and schooled in crime, some young residents of a Chicago center left regularly to commit assaults and thefts in the community.
Files reveal a dangerous place
Confidential juvenile records provide an alarming, firsthand look at chaos, violence and drug use in Lawrence Hall Youth Services' taxpayer-financed facilities.

Part 3: Abused all over again
A shocking number of sexually abused youths who were sent to residential treatment for safety and help reported being attacked again while in the facility's care.
Fleeing to an unsafe haven
Teens living at Indian Oaks Academy spent idle hours dancing, doing drugs and having sex in an abandoned building where they knew staff wouldn't follow.
Part 4: On the run, selling sex
Girls in residential treatment often find that prostitution is an accepted fact of life among their peers. Some disappear into that world, never to return.
Part 5: Arrested for misbehavior
Working with Medill Watchdog, the Tribune finds some centers call police after residents push staff, throw food or misbehave in other predictable ways given their histories.
A nationwide problem
Violence and running away can be documented at residential centers across the U.S., including facilities in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio, the Tribune and Medill Watchdog report.

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Harsh Treatment
DCFS chief fields queries about residential care
State child welfare chief Bobbie Gregg faced sharp questions from former juvenile wards in the wake of a Tribune investigation that revealed hundreds of reports that youth were assaulted or sexually abused in residential treatment centers.
Harsh Treatment
DCFS inspects troubled youth living centers
Teams of state child welfare officials have begun making unannounced inspections at residential treatment facilities that serve juvenile wards as authorities accelerate their response to a Tribune investigation.
Harsh Treatment
Angry lawmakers vow action on problems with residential care for troubled youths
Public officials reacted angrily to an ongoing Tribune investigation that found juvenile state wards were assaulted and sexually abused at government-funded residential treatment centers throughout Illinois.

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Residential treatment centers are supposed to provide a safe, healing environment for young state wards and disadvantaged children. But a Chicago Tribune investigation finds many are harmed instead.

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