Lawmakers call for change following allegations against foster parents

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CHICAGO (CBS) — A staggering discovery made by CBS 2 investigators has Illinois State Rep. Lakesia Collins (D-Chicago) calling for new law.

The team uncovered a pattern, dating back to 2016, of the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services routinely closing abuse and neglect complaints against adoptive parents – classifying them as unfounded 90% time.

“There is a serious problem with DCFS,” Collins said. “This is a child protective service, and these children don’t feel protected.”

Collins knows about abuse in foster care from her own personal life experience. She grew up in the DCFS system as an adopted child, but was unaware of how often adoptive parents in Illinois are cleared of abuse and neglect allegations. Nine times out of ten, the CBS 2 stat uncovered in the data is a number the agency has kept secret.

“It’s really, really mind-blowing to me,” she said.

Collins also didn’t know something else CBS 2 investigators found – DCFS fails to track how often it contacts police when they receive reports of child abuse and neglect within the system. DCFS.

“The audience looks at it like you’re deceiving the audience,” Collins said.

Collins, the newly elected leader of Illinois’ Legislative Black Caucus, wants to create a new law requiring DCFS to track its calls to the police and the results.

“The tracking part is important, because then how can you see the red flags?” she says.

Collins said that when she was a teenager in DCFS custody, a foster parent abused her and was never held accountable.

“She beat me right in front of the other kids in the house,” Collins said. “The police weren’t notified. The social worker never followed me. It’s like it never happened.”

Last month, we reported on 14 former foster children who have come forward to expose a disturbing pattern of unfounded abuse within DCFS. Each person said they suffered abuse while in care, but none of their abusers were ever held accountable.

“They weren’t lying,” Collins said. “They were telling the truth.”

CBS 2 investigators conducted a comprehensive analysis of how thousands of allegations of child abuse and neglect, dating back to 2016, were handled by DCFS. We have obtained unprecedented data revealing a deeply troubling pattern. When an allegation of child abuse or neglect is made, nine times out of ten, DCFS classifies it as unfounded.

Collins was unaware of all the unsubstantiated cases until she watched the CBS2 report in November and called it “disheartening.”

“You have the data and I don’t — and I’m a lawmaker,” Collins said. “What else don’t we get?”

Collins says she tried to reform the agency. And she says that despite repeated requests, DCFS prevented her from obtaining the kind of crucial data that CBS Chicago discovered. Data shows that claims of abuse and neglect by foster parents rose from 961 in 2016 to 1,205 in 2021, an increase of 25%.

The most common form of abuse we found involves physical injury and neglect. The allegations include bone fractures, head injuries, burns and torture. A staggering 91% of these allegations were classified as unsubstantiated by DCFS investigators.

“I was neglected, sexually abused, mentally abused,” said Caprice Langstaff, who was one of 14 former foster children we spoke to who is speaking out now. His attackers were never prosecuted.

The same thing happened to Mallory Stout.

“They know how to hit you without leaving a trace,” she said.

“No child should go through this,” said Caylon Brown, who has spent most of his life in DCFS custody.

She says her cries for help went unanswered after two men sexually assaulted her. The first time was when she was only five years old and being held in violent homes.

“It’s not common for a child to get an STD as young as I am,” Brown said. “But that was the first time I got an STD – when I was 5.”

“How many more are to be raped or injured in the ongoing operations? Collins said.

Data obtained by CBS 2 investigators contains more than 6,000 allegations of abuse and neglect made against 3,200 foster parents. While overall nearly 90% of all allegations are unsubstantiated, sexual offense allegations, including risk of sexual abuse, molestation, penetration and exploitation, were also unsubstantiated. founded by DCFS – 88% of the time.

“It’s a history and a culture that has, allows, [a] system to cover up abuse within it,” Collins said. “That’s why what you all do is so important.

She wants accountability for a system that has kept her records secret for decades.

CBS 2 investigators filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with DCFS in March 2021. We have requested reference data from the police.

DCFS rejected the FOIA, stating, “Please note that compliance with your FOIA request, as written, would be unduly burdensome. This would require the Department to spend significant time and effort reviewing individual records to determine if law enforcement has been contacted. Police contact information is not recorded separately but can be found in the case notes of investigations”

But late Thursday, just hours before the 10 p.m. news aired on CBS 2, DCFS changed its story — and they’re now telling CBS 2 they have that data after all. They say they are now working on giving it to us.

David Savini

Award-winning Chicago journalist Dave Savini is an investigative reporter for CBS2.

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