Cherie Livett Bombell

Kids Behind Bars, Geneva Illinois

Browsing Posts tagged Detention Centers

Tweet Brenda and I will be visiting the site of the former Geneva Girls School in August 2012. If you’d like to join us, please contact me via ‘Contact Me’ on this site. We’ll spend some time at the cemetery and pay our respects to the children buried there as well as those that spent […]

Tweet Savage. His name was on my mind when I woke up this morning. Savage was the nick name of a young Puerto Rican man on Wallace Cottage. He was a born leader. He had poise and an air of authority that the other young men respected and looked to for direction. It eked out […]

Tweet Imagine living in this much space. A tiny cell. Other areas of your ‘home’ are shared with at least 20 other people. There is no where to ‘get away’ except to your room and you can’t necessarily escape to your own space without permission. Prior to the early ’70, all activities were strictly controlled […]

Tweet This is how I remember Illinois State Training School for Girls, Geneva, Illinois. I used to park my car in the lot just opposite the guard station then walk through the middle of the grounds to Geneva Cottage or to Oak and Wallace Cottage on the right (just out of the picture). The cemetery […]

Tweet The following information and photograph was kindly provided by the Geneva History Center. “Beginning July 23, 2011, the Geneva History Center museum will host Who Was Sadie Cooksey?, a photographic traveling exhibition developed by Maine photographer Maggie Foskett. The genesis of this exhibition reaches back to 1979, when Foskett stumbled onto an isolated cemetery […]

Tweet In July, the Geneva History Center will host an exhibition titled Who Was Sadie Cooksey?. This is a traveling photo exhibition developed by Maine photographer, Maggie Foskett. With the genesis in 1979 when Ms Foskett took pictures of the cemetery at Geneva Training School, the exhibition focuses on a single individual whose tombstone caught […]

Mike said when he was first locked up at 13 he was sent to the Reception Center at Joliet. There he was sexually assaulted by a guard that made Mike preform oral sex on him. This abuse he kept totally to himself, trusting no one as the horror replayed in a continuous loop in his mind for eight years. Mike was locked up at that young age to be ‘rehabilitated’ for being ungovernable (truancy) and deceptive practices. The judge probably thought his would help him ‘straighten out’. His mother must felt relief that her son would get the help he needed to settle down and attend school. Everyone’s trust was betrayed but not so much as Mike’s. His world was forever haunted by the horrors of this pedophile’s abuse.

Aerial view of Illinois State Training School, Geneva, Illinois 1974

Thousands of children are being held behind bars through no fault of their own. Education can raise awareness and make a difference.