ST. LOUIS — Aldermen are trying to make it easier for a city oversight board to investigate problems at the downtown jail, after what advocates have called unacceptable obstruction from Mayor Tishaura O. Jones’ administration.
A bill from Alderman Rasheen Aldridge, of Downtown, would let the board hire its own lawyer, force city leaders to provide it more information, and trim training requirements board members say are being used to stop them from doing their work.
“They’re being stonewalled and held up from doing their job,” Aldridge said. “We need to make it so they can do what they were intended to do.”
The bill’s introduction this week follows months of complaints from oversight board members that jail commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah, City Counselor Sheena Hamilton and others are stalling investigations into jail deaths, violence and living conditions at the City Justice Center, across South Tucker Boulevard from City Hall. It responds to rising concerns among advocates and attorneys that inmates are being held without access to showers, hot food or other basic necessities.
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It’s also a sign of dissension in the ranks of progressive Democrats in the city. Last month, Aldridge, Aldermanic President Megan Green and others blasted the administration after two inmates died in as many weeks, calling for immediate transparency and reform. But Jones sent a letter to the oversight board on Friday expressing “full confidence” in Clemons-Abdullah’s leadership and calling the 40 hours of training required for board members commensurate with national standards.
Aldridge, who Jones endorsed in his race for aldermen this past spring, said he did not see his legislation as a challenge to Jones.
“I see it as doing the right thing,” he said.
Nick Desideri, a spokesman for Jones, said Jones met with Aldridge and Alderwoman Alisha Sonnier, of Tower Grove East, on the bill Thursday and had a productive conversation.
“We appreciate aldermanic input on this issue,” Desideri said. “The mayor’s focus remains on bringing the board into compliance with the law as it is currently written.”
This push for civilian oversight of the city’s jail system dates back to early 2021, shortly after Jones swept into office pledging to transform how the city locked people up.
She was emptying the Workhouse, the old northside jail long criticized by activists as a sweltering disgrace, and transferring its inmates to the newer jail downtown. But violent disturbances at the new jail were raising concerns, and she backed the creation of a new oversight board to look into detainee complaints of inhumane conditions there, too.
Since its formation in early 2022, however, the board has struggled to do much of anything. For most of last year, litigation stalled efforts to investigate the deaths of six inmates attributed to overdoses, suicide and natural causes. And when a judge finally cleared that up, oversight board members said they faced new obstacles from the administration itself and accused Clemons-Abdullah of blocking access to the jail, its staff, inmates and important records, like those documenting use of force.
Administration officials brushed off the concerns, saying board members needed to complete dozens of hours of training on confidentiality, federal and state laws and other topics before beginning investigations. And they said they would help board members get them done.
Board members called that a red herring — just another excuse to block their access.
The stalemate came to a head in the last two weeks of August: Inmates took a guard hostage for several hours, two inmates died, and police arrested an oversight board member who went to the jail seeking answers. Aldridge and six other aldermen on the board’s Public Safety Committee joined Green, the aldermanic president, in vowing to clear obstacles in the oversight board’s way.
Aldridge’s bill, to be introduced at Friday’s board meeting, cuts initial training requirements for board members to an orientation of 10 hours or less. It allows the board to hire an attorney independent of the City Counselor’s office. And it requires officials to explain to the board their reasoning when they stall an oversight investigation because it might interfere with a criminal inquiry.
“These are important steps toward the board being able to do what we were told it would,” said Mike Milton, a board member who also nonprofit focused on restorative justice.
Jail critics say the changes can’t happen soon enough.
Defense attorney Jay Kanzler said his clients in the City Justice Center say they’ve been going without clean clothes for weeks at a time and spending nearly every hour of the day in their cells, on lockdown — because there aren’t enough guards to watch them.
“They feel like they’re being treated like animals,” Kanzler said.
Matthew Mahaffey, the city’s chief public defender, said that after the hostage situation, inmates went without air conditioning for more than a week until officials gave a tour last Friday for Green, progressive St. Louis Congresswoman Cori Bush, and others.
The next day, Green said the tour was heartbreaking.
Inmates complained of having to wear dirty clothes due to lack of laundry service, limited access to showers, and rarely seeing the outside of their cells, she said.
“I think that’s enough to tax anyone’s mental health,” she said.
Katie Kull of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
St. Louis Interim Public Safety Director Dan Isom talks to the media about the updates made to the St. Louis city Justice Center before providing a tour of the third floor of the jail on Wednesday, May 4, 2022.
Video by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
