ACLU of Illinois Associate Legal Director Ben Wolf appeared on WBEZ to discuss the recent news of an increased number of child deaths due to abuse and neglect in children who have had previous contact with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).  For more than two decades, the ACLU of Illinois has been working to reform the child welfare system in Illinois, through a consent decree overseen by a federal court that has led to substantial changes to DCFS. Listen to the segment below:

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Grammy Award-winning jazz bassist, composer, and singer Esperanza Spalding today released We Are America, a new music video highlighting the injustice of prolonged indefinite detention at the prison at Guantánamo Bay. She discusses her motivations for the project below.

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Esperanza Spalding - We Are America from ESP Media on Vimeo.

Cross-posted from The Blog of Rights.

The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting on children who are under investigation by the Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) dying from child abuse and neglect. The article highlights the apparent inability on the part of DCFS to be able to handle the number of investigations under their purview. The ACLU of Illinois represents all children in the Illinois foster care system as part of our decades-long suit, B.H. v. McEwan. In 2012, we negotioated an agreement with DCFS to increase the number of child abuse and neglect investigators.

The overall increase in the number of abuse and neglect deaths — regardless of whether DCFS was involved — is “troubling, and we need to figure it out,” says Benjamin S. Wolf, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois who monitors DCFS under a federal court order.

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