ST. LOUIS — After roughly 18 months of existence, the St. Louis Detention Facilities Oversight Board was able to get inside the St. Louis City Justice Center for the first time.
But unfortunately, they weren’t able to see much after requesting access to the jail for months.
Only three members of the board were able to get inside the jail for just under an hour when they asked for two hours.
“We were shown the new locks, where the locks had been repaired on the fifth floor. We have been told very candidly that there are still units where the locks have not been fixed,” DFOB Chairperson Reverend Darryl Gray said.
Gray said from there it quickly turned into a private meeting with Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemmons-Abdullah.
He has previously called for her resignation but after this is hopeful there will be progress.
“Her commitment to allow our staff to have access, that's that is the number one thing that I brought from it,” Gray said.
A recent board bill by St. Louis Ward 14 Alderman Rasheen Aldridge, which hasn’t been signed by the mayor yet, aims to also provide the board more access to the jail and information they need to investigate claims.
“We are trying to get real transparency and oversight to a facility that it is desperately needed in. And over the last several years, there's been ten deaths. Under this jail commissioner, there's been seven alone. That's unacceptable. Jail is not a place of luxury, but it definitely shouldn't be a place where people's lives are being taken behind these bars,” Aldridge said.
For that very reason, Gray said they wanted to see the medical facility and still have a lot of questions they need answered.
“Not only have people died, we want to know if those deaths were preventable. We're talking about overdoses. We're talking about other medical problems. How well equipped has the medical staff been at diagnosing medical problems of detainees?” Gray said.
Gray said they also wanted to see the kitchen as there have been nutritional complaints.
To date, there have been roughly 36 complaints filed with the board.
The board is still concerned about staffing levels.
“There's definitely not enough staff here. The $3,500 signing bonus is not enough. But as I said to the commissioner, we want to work with her. We want to work with her to make sure that detainees are safe. We want to make sure by working with her that correctional officers are safe. And we made that clear. We're not adversaries,” Gray said.
Aldridge said he is also working on another bill to allow more access to the jail for the St. Louis Board of Aldermen.
“There may be potential legislation coming in the future that allows Board of Aldermen members to be able to go in, just like on the state level. On the state level they have the ability to go in any prison, any time of the day. I'm looking at that same state statute and seeing how we bring that down to the Board of Aldermen,” Aldridge said.
Gray said the DFOB is going to discuss next steps at its next meeting on Monday and work toward another visit.