最新杏吧原创

ST. LOUIS 鈥� Dozens of activists gathered Friday to demand changes at the city鈥檚 downtown jail,听which has seen 18 people die in custody since 2020.

In a press conference on the steps of City Hall, activists said the city has failed to provide proper health care services and has broken its promises to improve conditions and be more transparent about problems.

鈥淲e must act now to prevent any further loss of life,鈥� said Mike Milton, who heads Freedom Community Center, which advocates for alternatives to incarceration.聽

The protest marked only the latest call for change at an institution that has lurched from crisis to crisis in recent years. Since 2021, it has been buffeted by聽rioting,听hostage-taking, and rashes of deaths. Detainees and their family members have complained of聽dismal health care services. Attorneys have聽complained of trouble getting access to clients. Aldermen have held hearings on worrying staff shortages.

It has also been a political problem.聽Mayor Tishaura O. Jones鈥� campaigned on聽cleaning up the Corrections Division after years of complaints of inhumane conditions and treatment of detainees at the City Workhouse, on the north riverfront, and riots at the downtown jail. The workhouse is closed, and set for demolition next month. But the downtown jail remains an albatross.聽

The city has tried聽to improve conditions, 最新杏吧原创 Public Safety Director Charles Coyle countered at a press conference Friday. Officials have hired a new contract health care provider and聽created new city health department positions to oversee care. They have ramped up visitor screening to keep out drugs that have caused deadly overdoses. They have spent聽millions of dollars聽replacing faulty cell locks that enabled at least some of the rioting.聽

鈥淲e have made improvements, and continue to make improvements,鈥� Coyle said.

He noted that only two people have died in city custody thus far this year. If that holds, it would mark a reduction from 2022, when six people died, and 2023, when five people did.

But activists聽said they would not be satisfied without sweeping change.

Reading from a letter signed by a slew of social justice groups and delivered to city officials Friday, Milton said the city must end lockdowns that keep detainees in their cells for most of the day, and work with courts and prosecutors to reduce the number of people in the jail.聽

He said the city has聽to stop arming its guards with mace spray, which聽critics say has been overused on prisoners. He said the city鈥檚 citizen oversight board must be given full access to the jail and its records to investigate wrongdoing, something board members say they have been consistently denied over the past two years.聽

Others, like Inez Bordeaux, who is running for alderman in the city's 3rd Ward, and Janis Mensah, the onetime chair of the city's jail oversight board, spoke of closing the downtown jail like the city did with the old workhouse, leaving the city with no jail at all.

鈥淭o me, it's simple,鈥� Mensah said.聽鈥淣o more jail deaths means no more jail.鈥�

Rasmus Jorgensen, a spokesperson for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, said the city has no plans to close its remaining jail.