Stories by Beth Hundsdorfer — Capitol News Illinois

The bill’s future is uncertain as it draws fierce opposition from homeschool families, a threat against its sponsor prompting a police investigation and shaky support from Democrats.

Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman, with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, agreed with legal advocates who argued that the state still hasn’t met its decade-old promises to help people with intellectual and developmental disabilities live outside large institutions.

Regardless of how long a detainee stays in jail, however, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said a state ID has consistently been at the “top of the list” of needs that those in jail reported to officials upon intake “because it unlocks everything else.”

The department’s about-face on Choate’s top leader follows months of reporting on poor conditions at the facility by Capitol News Illinois, Lee Enterprises Midwest and ProPublica.

People with developmental disabilities living in Illinois’ publicly run institutions have been punched, slapped, hosed down, thrown about and dragged across rooms; in other cases, staff failures contributed to patient harm and death, state police and internal investigative records show.