GALESBURG, Ill. (KWQC) – The Mary Davis Home has faced allegations of illegal solitary confinement and denying children mental health treatment for more than a year.
The Galesburg Juvenile Detention Center recently got sent to the drawing board for a second time after a judge ruled their mental health plan doesn’t meet standards.
TV6 Investigates sat down Doctor Louis Kraus who is the division head of child and adolescent psychology at Rush University Medical Center who shares how practices at the facility could lead kids down a road they’ll never recover from.
The Background:
For 18 months, TV6 Investigates has dug into issues at the Mary Davis Home. The facility had to cap its population due to low staffing which included struggles in 2024 of finding enough qualified educators.
State reports alluded to confinement practices that didn’t line up with the law which only allowed for 15-minute confinement periods which can only be extended under select circumstances. The ACLU filed a lawsuit saying the facility kept kids in confinement 23 hours a day for weeks at a time.
In early 2025, the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice did its yearly tour of the Mary Davis Home. Officials noted some improvements, but found key inconsistencies when they audited confinement practices. On a day when the facility said no kids were confined, state workers found at least four instances of confinement that should have been logged.
The ACLU of Illinois filed an injunction against the facility for its confinement practices and for denying kids on suicide watch mental health resources.
The ACLU won that injunction in September of 2025 and won another injunction in January. The injunction also required the Mary Davis Home to publish a new mental health plan to meet the needs of kids at the facility.
Dr. Louis Kraus filed a statement for the ACLU to explain his concerns with the Mary Davis Home’s amended plan. He explained the potential pitfalls and dangers kids face at the facility if change doesn’t happen soon.
The Consequences of Solitary Confinement:
When it comes to solitary confinement, Dr. Kraus said the consequences are severe.
“The great majority of these kids we can help, but amongst other things, placing them in solitary confinement for long periods of time, we’re just adding to their pathology and making it much more likely that there’s going to be some sort of recidivistic behavior,” Kraus said.
He believes solitary confinement erodes kids’ trust, making it harder to treat mental illness in the future.
“At the end of the day, they start to lose trust in people,” Kraus said. “It makes treatment very hard, trusting anyone really and they can develop a kind of chronic PTSD that can be devastating. The longer this process goes on for a child, the more significant the impact can be.”
Screening Concerns:
Kraus said screening is key when tackling mental health challenges at juvenile detention centers.
Several studies, including one in Cook County showed an average of 60-70% of kids who enter a juvenile detention center have a mental illness. He said an even bigger problem is that most of the kids have never been treated before.
“Many of them don’t have the educational interventions that they need.” Kraus said. “They haven’t seen psychiatry, they don’t see mental health professionals consistently and they’re essentially not being helped when it comes to their mental health treatment.”
Kraus believes the problems at the Mary Davis Home start from the moment kids get to the facility. He said kids are given the MAYSI test, which is designed to gauge a child’s behavioral health needs, when they get to the facility.
Kraus’ issue isn’t with the test, but he believes it needs to be performed by qualified mental health professionals (QMHPs), not facility staff.
“They use it in an awkward at best way,” Kraus said.
Kraus believes the test, when given by a QMHP, can be effective when a behavioral health plan is also put in place. He said until those changes happen, the facility starts digging a hole before kids get more than a few dozen steps through the door.
Treating mental illness:
Dr. Kraus has considerable concerns over how the facility treats kids who are showing signs of a mental illness.
When kids at the facility go on suicide watch or are considered for a trip to the hospital, Kraus said there aren’t clear follow ups with kids once an initial decision is made.
“If you have somebody who is that sick or needs that kind of evaluation, you would expect they would come back and they would have a comprehensive mental health plan put in place, you would expect they would see a child and adolescent psychiatrist, you would expect there would be a competent, qualified mental health provider that had consistent treatment,” Kraus said. “In isolation there were a couple kids that I saw that had a qualified mental health professional seeing them, but there were limited brief evaluations.”
Potential solutions:
The ACLU of Illinois and Dr. Kraus came up with a list of several things they think would change the tide of mental health treatment at the facility and filed it with the court.
Potential changes:
(1) All youth detained at MDH should receive a comprehensive mental health evaluation by a qualified mental health professional (QMHP) upon intake (and not merely completion of a screening tool by non-mental health staff), and youth currently detained at MDH who did not receive such an evaluation upon intake should undergo one as soon as possible; and
(2) All youth detained at MDH should receive an evaluation by a QMHP or physician within one hour of any of the following events:
The youth self-harmsThe youth expresses suicidal ideationThe youth scores 5 on the MAYSI screenerThe youth is assessed by staff as being in mental health crisisThe youth is placed on suicide watch, orThe youth is placed in any form of solitary confinement; and
(3) MDH must provide youth with access to a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist within 24-72 hours of any of the above occurrences;
(4) All youth identified at screening or thereafter as having a serious mental illness, suicidal ideation, or thoughts of self harm should be given a mental health treatment plan describing treatment to be given to the patient, identifying the clinician responsible for providing that treatment, and noting the frequency of treatment or intervention to be provided; and
(5) There must be a mechanism for guardians, plaintiffs’ counsel and the Court to verify that this plan is being followed, such as a requirement that Defendants provide notice to Plaintiffs’ counsel, the Court, and a guardian whenever a youth is identified as being in mental health crisis and produce documentation of the mental health intervention provided.
Kraus says the demands for QMHPs may be extreme, but believes telehealth makes it possible to track down services and professionals that wouldn’t have been available in the past.
The Mary Davis Home defense:
Even though a judge denied the Mary Davis Home’s argument to end the injunction and accept their mental health plan, they had their own doctor file arguments about why the mental health plan and confinement practices were acceptable.
Within those arguments, Dr. David Roush with the National Partnership for Juvenile Services believes the ACLU is calling out confinement without offering a solution to fix it.
“Advocates rarely have a good answer about the future of juvenile detention, so we are held hostage waiting for them to create the ideal juvenile justice system free from all forms of incarceration,” Roush said.
What comes next:
The judge ruled that the Mary Davis Home must submit another mental health plan by January 27.
The ACLU of Illinois will have two weeks to respond to that plan. A judge will then rule on whether or not it meets standards on February 25.
Copyright 2026 KWQC. All rights reserved.