South Cook News

Republican Jim Dodge -- Oak Park village trustee, who ran for Illinois State Treasurer in 2018 -- talked to South Cook News after a recent lawsuit alleging that the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) was allowing children be be wrongfully detained.

"There is no excuse for not making things better for these kids," he said.

Eighteen-year-old Janiah Caine is one of eight defendants named in the federal civil rights lawsuit that alleges that she was forced to spend months wrongfully incarcerated in a juvenile jail on three separate occasions, during which she told investigators she felt in danger. She was a minor when this happened.

"You don't feel safe. The staff don't make you feel safe either. They're not respectful to you. They treat you like nothing," Caine told ABC 7 Eyewitness News.

The federal civil rights lawsuit was filed by Cook County Guardian Charles Golbert against DCFS. He claims the agency often leaves children in detention centers for months after their release orders are signed because they don't have enough staff or beds to house them. The suit alleges that DCFS officials “willfully and wrongly” left dozens of children under the care of the agency locked away in juvenile jails, even after some of them had been ordered released to their guardians.

Dodge told the South Cook News that blame should first be placed on elected officials.

"Ultimately, the elected officials are accountable for the bureaucrats who work for the state," he said. "If there’s clear evidence that the job is not being done, there is no excuse for not taking steps to get it right."

According to statistics recently made public by the Office of the Cook County Public Guardian, as recently as in 2021, there were 84 instances of children left locked up for prolonged periods of time, with at least seven of them remaining in custody currently.

Dodge added that the issue has flown under the radar because Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) hasn't addressed it directly.

"It just seems the governor is focused on other things, bigger political issues," he said.

However, he feels that the issue does need to be in the open.

"From what you’re publicly seeing, there are good reasons to ask hard questions about this agency," Dodge said.