GALESBURG, Illinois (KWQC) – For the third straight year, the Mary Davis Home in Galesburg failed to meet state standards when it comes to confining kids.
The Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice tours all county-ran facility every year. Since 2023, the agency labeled the facility’s use of confinement as noncompliant, including in the recently released 2025 report.
Though the IDJJ notes progress has been made, this year’s report specifically notes multiple times when the facility didn’t log confinements that would have been illegal under Illinois law. The law say juveniles can only be confined for 15 minutes at a time before they are reevaluated, and each of those occasions need to be documented. Despite those regulations, the reports says facility admin claimed no one was confined at the facility in June 2024 despite investigators finding four confinements that should have been reported.
Additionally, interviews with teens confined at the facility brought more unreported confinements to light. The teen claimed he had been confined for a full day, and though video evidence the investigators reviewed showed the confinement was closer to four hours, he and two other teens were illegally confined with no documented reason in shift logs, behavior hold reports or in the monthly confinement summary.
Illegal confinement is at the heart of a lawsuit the ACLU brought forward against the Mary Davis Home last year. Their lawsuit claims the facility confines kids for weeks at a time and even alleges mental health treatment is kept from kids on “suicide watch.” The IDJJ report does not reflect the severity of those claims, but does list three years of illegal confinement practices.
The confinement goes beyond punishment, as the report claims kids are put in confinement every day for shift changes. The IDJJ criticized the practice last year, though the facility explained it as a product of staffing constraints. However, this year, the facility boasted its best staffing in more than two years and continues to cap its population of inmates at 12. Despite these improving ratios, the state says the facility continues to confine kids daily for the shift change, regardless of their behavior.
The Mary Davis Home has declined to comment on the pending litigation brought forward by the ACLU.
As of June 2, 2025, the court has not ruled on the ACLU’s motion to make its lawsuit a class action, or its injunction to stop confinement practices at the facility.
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