This article was created for Propublica’s local reporting network in collaboration with Capitol News Illinois. Sign up for Dispatch to get stories like this as soon as it is published.
The US Department of Justice has launched a broad survey into the treatment of Illinois in people with developmental disabilities. We looked into whether the state provides appropriate resources for community life and protects residents from harm to public agencies.
Tonya Piephoff, director of the Developmental Disorders Division of Illinois Human Services, notified employees of the investigation in a letter dated March 13, obtained by Capitol News Illinois.
“The investigation will look into whether the state is unnecessarily institutionalised or with serious risks of institutionalisation, intellectual and developmental disabilities,” the letter states. Illinois has long had one of the highest populations of people with developmental and intellectual disabilities living in national government agencies.
The letter said the investigation would investigate allegations of abuse and neglect of three patients out of seven nationally operated residential facilities run by IDH, including the Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center in rural southern Illinois. The article documented instances of staff abuse.
Gov. JB Pritzker said Friday that Illinois is making major changes to improve the safety of people with developmental disabilities who already live in state-run agencies. Pretzker said individuals have moved to other agencies and the state has also strengthened the services provided to residents at those locations. He didn’t address some of the federal investigations focusing on whether Illinois relies heavily on agencies to provide care rather than helping people in a community-based environment.
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“The work is already underway,” Pretzker said of the DOJ investigation, speaking at an unrelated press conference. “It’s fine if you have research, but the reality is that things are moving in the right direction and I did what I said I should.
IDHS issued a statement Wednesday that read, “As usual, the department will fully cooperate with the independent investigation and will continue to keep staff and interested stakeholders up to date as a permitted method.”
“IDHS has made unprecedented investments in home- and community-based options to enable Illinois with disabilities to live in the least-limited settings of choice.”
A DOJ spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
The latest research also promises to be much broader than previous DOJ research. The new initiative reviews how the nation serves all people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, including those living in communities and homes.
DOJ had previously investigated Choate in 2007. A report released two years later found that the facility did not provide the right transition plan for those who wish to move into the community. And for those living within state-run facilities, they were unable to protect their residents from abuse and neglect, in violation of their constitutional and federal law rights, failing to meet their health, education and treatment needs. DOJ ended its monitoring in 2013.
In a Investigation Series 10 years later, detailed cases of Capitol News Illinois and Propublica recorded residents beat, choking, whipping, sexually assaulted and humiliated by staff, in police and court records. These cases included a 2014 assault by a male staff member with an intellectual disability who failed to pull up his pants. They also included verbal abuse of residents with developmental disabilities in 2020, including a threat from staff members to break his fingers captured on the recorded 911 line, according to court records, police reports and IDHS Watchdog findings.
The report also documented a culture that conceals abuse and neglect in facilities. The findings were later reflected in the IDHS Inspector’s Office.
In the wake of the report, Pretzker called the abuse detailed in the story “severe” and “deeply concerned.” The agency has pledged to make systematic changes to choose to select the nearly 230 people with developmental disabilities who lived there at the time.
However, as news organizations continued to report on abuse and neglect at Choate, documented in internal and state police reports, Pritzker and IDHS leadership teams announced plans to change courses and move at least half of Choate residents to community placement or one of the other six national operating facilities.
“We’re at a point today when all of them weren’t working to the extent we wanted them to, so today we’re making transformational changes,” he told reporters at a press conference.
The report said the nation needs more people to find community groups and help prepare for the transition.
Illinois’ dependence on institutions represents “an outdated and oppressive model of serving people with developmental disabilities,” says Andrea Lizer, equipping equality lawyers.
The U.S. Supreme Court found in 1999 that locking people with disabilities in state agencies constituted discrimination and that patients with mental disabilities should be placed in a community environment if they express their desire to live outside the facility if they are medically permitted.
Illinois could barely do that and ended with a federal consent ruling. Judges should remain until the state has made more progress last year.
Security cameras caught employees beating patients. It took 11 days for everyone to take action.
Today, accusations of abuse and neglect continue to grow across Choate and the system. A December 2024 report by the inspector said it received more than 15,000 complaints from individuals in facility and community-based settings. This is an increase of 24% from the previous year, and a jump of 80% from 2020. The inspector’s office said “there is still a shortage of staff sufficient to efficiently handle rising caseloads and estimates that at least 120 workers are needed.”
Additionally, two years after Pritzker’s announcement that 123 residents with intellectual or developmental disabilities would be relocated from Choate, 81 people were relocated, mostly to other national operations developmental centres. Not included in the governor’s initiative are 111 patients with developmental disabilities who live in a specialist unit at Choate.
There are currently nearly 1,600 people with developmental disabilities living in state-run facilities in Illinois, and 242 residents say they want to explore life in the community.
