Chicago Reporter (https://www.chicagoreporter.com/author/jeff-kelly-lowenstein/)
Jeff is a journalism lecturer at Columbia College Chicago and a former reporter at The Chicago Reporter.
Advocates want to see Mark Diamond face criminal charges and be put out of business permanently, while other black homeowners he targeted hope to obtain restitution soon.
Elderly homeowners on the South and West Sides have been victimized by schemes that put them at risk of losing their homes.
Federal agents carried out a search warrant Thursday at the Logan Square offices of Mark Diamond, a Chicago businessman accused of a reverse mortgage and home repair scheme that targeted elderly black homeowners on the city’s West and South Sides.
Dozens of elderly African-Americans on the South and West Sides say they were victims of a reverse mortgage scam that left many with fees they couldn’t afford and incomplete, shoddy repairs.
En Chicago, cientos de agresores sexuales de niños están violando una ley estatal con vivir dentro de 500 pies de un centro de cuidado de niños, patio de recreo o escuela. Y las agencias del orden público están fallando en aplicar la ley.
In Chicago, hundreds of child sex offenders are violating a state law by living within 500 feet of a child care facility, playground or school. And law enforcement agencies are failing to enforce the law.
In investigating allegations of child sexual abuse, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services often causes trauma, and black children and families are affected most.
Parada en la puerta principal de su hogar de dos pisos en una calle tranquila y residencial de Oak Park, Kimberly Stevens dio un beso de despedida a cada uno de sus tres niños de adopción temporal en una mañana soleada de abril 2006, diciendo que los vería más tarde. Stevens no sabía que “más tarde” terminaría siendo más de dos años y medio para su hijo y más de tres para sus dos hijas. No sabía que el niño pasaría tiempo en un hospital psiquiátrico y regresaría a su cuidado siendo ni la sombra de la exuberancia de antes. No sabía que estaba entrando a un proceso legal que le costaría miles de dólares y consumiría casi todo su tiempo y energía. Lo único que sabía Stevens era que había sido una mañana típica de despertar a los niños, vestirlos, darles de comer y prepararles para la escuela.
In its procedures about how to handle child sexual abuse, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has unambiguous language about the role poverty should play in determining whether abuse has occurred. None. A Chicago Reporter analysis of allegations of child sexual abuse made to the DCFS Child Abuse Hotline paints a different picture.
Responses vary about how best to reduce the trauma caused to children and families during sexual abuse investigations–”particularly ones facing the disproportionate number of black families. Raelene Freitag, director of the Children’s Research Center in Madison, Wis., advocates an approach called “structured decision-making.” The approach acknowledges the tendency of people’s brains to make snap and emotional judgments that could be biased and provides a set of clearly defined, observable and research-based items to make a decision that the investigator’s supervisor can verify. “Nobody’s a bad person because your brain works a certain way,” she said. “An emotional response is not truth.