City Jails

Members of the St. Louis Detention Facilities Oversight Board met with a detainee at the St. Louis City Justice Center on Thursday and explained how inmates can let the board know about their plight.

The new report includes community suggestions for the riverfront building and surrounding 30 acres.

Two members of the St. Louis Detention Facilities Oversight Board have resigned. The resignations follow months of criticisms by board members who say the city has stonewalled members from investigating jail complaints.

Homicides in the city of St. Louis have decreased 20% since last year, and juvenile shootings are down nearly 40% this year, according to Mayor Tishaura Jones' office.

St. Louis activists are again calling for the resignation of Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah and for the Detention Facilities Oversight Board to receive access to the jail.

St. Louis police officers on Thursday forcibly removed the vice chair of the St. Louis Detention Facilities Oversight Board from the St. Louis City Justice Center.

St. Louis’ Detention Facilities Oversight Board is calling on city officials to compel the division of corrections to provide requested documentation on the St. Louis City Justice Center.

The newly-formed Detention Facilities Oversight Board will continue to review complaints of alleged misconduct in the jails. The board has the power to issue subpoenas to witnesses or production of documents, as well as be granted access to city detention facilities upon request.

Work on the changes began last May, when aldermen approved the Detention Facilities Oversight Board. But supporters will have to carefully count votes, and lobby their colleagues, to send it to the mayor on Friday.

Cash bail has largely disappeared in St. Louis. Instead, circuit court judges are increasingly denying bond altogether, a new report from the Freedom Community Center found.