The St. Louis Detention Facilities Oversight Board is down two members after Vice Chair Janis Mensah and Mike Milton resigned this week.
Their resignations are the latest signs of discord between members of the board and jail officials following 15 deaths at the St. Louis City Justice Center since 2020.
“I resigned from this board specifically because I thought that the DFOB was the opportunity for us to hold each other accountable, for us to bring transparency to create reports that talks about the conditions of the jail, so that we can have an opportunity to change the conditions of the jail,” Milton said. “Since I've started this board in June of 2022, we have not made any progress.”
The string of deaths has led board members to call for the firing or resignation of Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah, who has overseen the jail since 2021. In his resignation letter, Milton also criticized Mayor Tishaura Jones for obstructing the board.
The St. Louis Board of Aldermen formed the oversight board last year to investigate jail complaints. But oversight board members said Clemons-Abdullah and the city counselor’s office have prevented its members from investigating jail conditions. Last month, some board members took their first tour of the jail after completing city-required training.
But Milton said that the visit was limited and that board members still don’t have what they need to investigate conditions for detainees.
“We have not received any information, we have nothing to answer to the families who have suffered loss while they’re inside of the facility,” Milton said.
Jones said Thursday that she is committed to making sure the board can do its work and has sought to defend it. But she said for the board to be effective, members need to have a firm understanding of jail operations, confidentiality rules, federal, state and local laws and detainee rights.
“Mr. Milton’s absence on training dates and Mx. Mensah’s repeated refusal to complete the training only hindered their ability to be informed and effective,” Jones said in a statement.
Jones said she will work with the remaining members to ensure that the board investigates jail complaints and conditions.
Last month, officials announced that the city had entered into a contract with a new health care provider for the jail. A couple of days later, another detainee died in what public safety officials described as an apparent suicide.
During a public safety committee hearing Wednesday, Public Safety Director Charles Coyle defended Clemons-Abdullah and said most of the deaths since 2020 occurred from natural causes and drug overdoses.
“We have areas where we know that our community is not seeing the doctor on anything like a regular basis,” Coyle said. “We're having people come into the Justice Center with serious health issues, and I don't know that it's fair to say that how you blame someone for a natural cause.”
Coyle credited Clemons-Abdullah for upgrading jail locks and working to install three more scanners to find drugs and other illicit substances that could be brought in by detainees and to prevent overdoses. He said jail leaders also have increased the number of drug-detecting dogs.
“We're working on how to stop them from coming in outside, whether it's from a staff member, whether it's from a third party contractor, whether it's from an attorney, whether it's from someone coming to visit the detainee,” Coyle said. “However it is getting in, it is getting in, and that's not something that's just in the city of St. Louis, all jails are faced with that same problem.”
Coyle said jail leaders also are trying to recruit more correctional officers by offering a $3,500 hiring incentive, boosting the pay to $46,000 a year and working with Harris-Stowe State University and St. Louis University to find potential part-time workers. He said that there are 71 corrections officers at the jail, down from 100, but that there are fewer detainees than in previous years.
Aldermen said the deaths have left them frustrated.
“I don't want to speak for my colleagues, I think that there's one, a sense of heartbreak and a sense of frustration that we keep having deaths at the jail,” said Alderwoman Daniela Velázquez, a member of the aldermanic public safety committee. “I'm glad we're getting into the specifics of this in particular, but I feel like we were just here six weeks ago saying one is too many.”
Milton said even if the deaths are attributed to natural causes or drug overdoses, many detainees still need proper care. Last year, detainees filed a lawsuit accusing guards of using Mace on them and depriving them of water.
“There is a huge, alarming problem when it comes to conditions of that jail, like people being Maced for no reason at all, which is why that's being challenged in court, women not getting access to feminine care, like people not eating,” Milton said.
