Hundreds of former residents of juvenile detention centers are accusing the state and Cook County of failing to protect them from “persistent and prevalent” sexual abuse by employees in youth prisons across Illinois in another set of sweeping lawsuits.
“These abuses are horrific in nature,” said attorney Todd Matthews at a Tuesday news conference in the Loop. “This has to stop, it has to stop. It has to be dealt with.”
The complaints, filed Monday in the Illinois Court of Claims and Cook County Circuit Court, detailed widespread abuse from 1996 to 2021. The more than 270 plaintiffs in the lawsuits — about 40 women and 230 men — join hundreds of others who have alleged similar abuse.
Michael Moss, now 30, said in the suit that he was sexually abused by two detention officers when he was 17 years old in the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, formerly called the Arthur J. Audy Home. One of the officers abused Moss while he was in the restroom and in his cell, performing oral copulation on him, the suit said, and another threatened to send Moss to solitary confinement if he didn’t allow abuse to continue.
“When I was 17, I made a few mistakes (and) ended up at the Audy Home. The employees at Cook County beat me, threatened me and sexually abused me,” Moss said Tuesday. “I wouldn’t wish my situation on anybody.”
“I have a wife and two kids, and even now, I feel so difficult at times to even talk about. I went through what I went through because it was a lot of shame and a lot of guilt and a lot of pain that I felt over a few decades,” he added.
The complaint said chronic mismanagement, overcrowding and inadequate supervision allowed an “environment of violence, fear and sexual abuse” to continue for decades. A 1999 federal class-action lawsuit also alleged a raft of problems at the facility.
A spokesperson for Chief Judge Tim Evans’ office said the office does not comment on pending litigation.
The state facilities where the abuse is alleged to have taken place, according to the lawsuit, are current and former youth centers in Warrenville, Chicago, Harrisburg, St. Charles, Murphysboro, Valley View, Joliet and Kewanee. The suit accuses the state of failing to act on reports of abuse and of failing to comply with parts of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which was enacted to prevent abuse in carceral settings.
Khadafi Muhammad, now 37, said a warden and a correctional officer sexually abused him from 2001 to 2002 when he was 15 and 16 at the Illinois Youth Center in Murphysboro. The lawsuit said the men went into Muhammad’s dorm while other residents were sleeping and took him into an employee break room. There, the men forced Muhammad to perform oral sex on them, and threatened to make him “disappear” if he reported the abuse, the suit said.
When Muhammad was at the St. Charles facility the following year, he said two correctional officers entered his cell after evening lockup and said they had to perform a strip search, which the suit said was “nothing more than a pretext for sexual abuse.” The officers took turns digitally penetrating his anus, telling him he’s “good looking for a Black boy,” the suit said, before coercing him into performing oral sex.
Muhammad said Tuesday that he still has nightmares from the incidents, adding that it’s impacted his relationships.
“I want to bring awareness to the sexual abuse and corruption on those at the Illinois Youth Centers, and want to thank Allah for finally giving justice after all these years,” he said. “I pray this never happens to anyone again.”
In a statement, the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice said it can’t comment on active litigation, but that it “takes seriously the safety of youth in the care of the department” and has enacted policies and procedures to identify possible instances of abuse or misconduct.
“All allegations of staff misconduct are immediately and thoroughly investigated internally and often in partnership with the Department of Corrections, the Illinois State Police and the Department of Children and Family Services,” the statement read.
Attorneys also called on Gov. JB Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul to take action to stop the abuse and bring justice to the victims. Attorney Jerome Block compared the “violation of public trust” to that of systemic sexual abuse by Catholic priests, saying the state should dedicate resources to an investigation.
“Hundreds of people sexually abused in government-operated facilities, and we’ve heard nothing of substance from the governor and the attorney general,” Block said. “Our clients want to know that their voices are being heard and that something is being done to provide justice for them, and that something is being done to fix the system.”
