Did everyone not disciplined the first time around just feel as though they’d skated? Similar to a mother catching one child’s misdeed and another getting away with something worse?

Abuse uncovered by investigative reporting ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Lee Enterprises, along with Capitol News Illinois, prompted an outcry over conditions at Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center. The State of Illinois proposed moving residents to similar facilities in the state.

Problem solved? No, the problem was ignored despite a lot of words being devoted to making changes. Since September, when the news organizations began publishing stories about abuse and neglect of patients at Choate, there have been 465 new complaints to the inspector general’s hotline for reporting maltreatment. Nearly half of those were made after the state’s March 8 announcement that it would begin moving some residents out of Choate. Fresh reporting reveals the state kept on administrators at who were in charge during some of the facility’s most troubled years.

New reporting shows the problems at Choate are common throughout the statewide system. 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.

The Illinois State Police division that looks into alleged criminal wrongdoing by state employees has opened 200 investigations into employee misconduct at these developmental centers since 2012 — most of them outside of Choate.

Illinois continues to face concerns that have caused many other states to downsize or shut down their state-run institutions. Illinois has about the same number of people living in them as do California, Florida, New York and Ohio combined.

Between 2013 and 2022, the Illinois Department of Human Services inspector general investigated nearly 4,000 allegations from the developmental centers — with the most recent five years seeing a 45% increase in allegations compared with the earlier part of the decade.

Allan Bergman, a consultant who advises clients and governments across the U.S. on disability policies and programs, made the damning observation that “This is one of the most backward states in the nation on everything we know how to measure when it comes to the care of people with developmental disabilities,”

Obviously, the issue is widespread and problems have been ignored. The state must have a serious discussion with taxpayers and guardians of those in mental health and developmental centers. Workers and residents are entitled to their conditions being as safe as possible.

The system is presently failing at meeting that condition.