Lake County Gazette

Illinois state Rep. Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville) has reacted to a recent federal report that said the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) "willfully and wrongly" left dozens of children locked away in juvenile jails even after a judge had ordered at least of some of them to be released to their guardian. 

A recently filed federal lawsuit accuses the government agency of allowing innocent children to be kept behind bars, sometimes for weeks at a time and without proper care, even after a judge had ordered at least of some of them to be released into the care of the their guardian; a Jan. 19 WLS news report said.

"All we get when the Department is confronted is excuse after excuse," Halbrook told the Lake County Gazette in a recent interview. "We need to get honest answers from the Department if we hope to ever solve these problems. The blame game is wearing thin. Let’s hold some hearings and let’s have an honest accounting of what is really happening at DCFS."

Teenager Janiah Caine is one of eight defendants named in the federal civil rights lawsuit after being forced to spend months wrongfully incarcerated in a juvenile jail over three separate occasions.

"You don't feel safe," Caine told WLS. "The staff don't make you feel safe either. They're not respectful to you. They treat you like nothing."

Statistics recently made public by the Office of the Cook County Public Guardian showed that as recently as in 2021 there were 84 instances of children left locked up for prolonged periods of time, WLS said. At least seven of those children remain in custody to this day.

"Pritzker’s job is to lead and when confronted with difficult situations, he choses the opposite course of action," Halbrook told the Gazette. "I am disappointed he has chosen silence and inaction, but I am not surprised.

"DCFS exists to help troubled kids. Leaving those kids in jail for extra time is not helping anyone. They are doing tremendous harm to kids who need real help. We need Marc Smith to step down and we need a thorough investigation into the root cause of the problems at DCFS.

"I am confident there will be more lawsuits. I am confident kids are being harmed. I am confident more problems will come to light and I am confident our leaders will continue to pretend these problems do not exist."