CHICAGO (AP) — More than 200 men and women were sexually abused as children while in custody at juvenile detention centers in Illinois, according to lawsuits filed Monday, the latest in a string of complaints alleging decades of systemic child sex abuse.
Three lawsuits filed Monday detail abuse from 1996 to 2021, including rape, forced oral sex and beatings by corrections officers, nurses, kitchen staff, chaplains and others.
“The State of Illinois has caused and permitted a culture of sexual abuse to flourish unabated in its Illinois Youth Center facilities,” one lawsuit said, adding that Illinois has “overwhelmingly failed to investigate c