When Jeff Jensen accepted the commission to serve as U.S. attorney for Eastern Missouri, which includes a city with one of the nation’s worst violent crime problems, St. Louis, he wanted to address that crisis. But he had a problem. By law, most violent crimes are prosecuted by states, not the federal government.
Jensen was determined to find a way to help prosecute more violent crimes for good reasons. There is a real crisis, and local authorities could use help. Federal prosecutors are better funded than circuit attorneys and in a position to help with resources. And the Probation and Parole Office for Eastern Missouri has a far better record for rehabilitating ex-offenders than the national average for analogous cases at state parole offices – better by nearly a factor of 10. Jensen was determined to find creative ways to help.
A little more than one year into the job, his creativity and that of his local partners have resulted in new systems of working together that are resulting in a great many more prosecutions of violent crime — more than double the number from the previous year — and a less impressive but still significant drop in murders — down about 5 percent — in St. Louis city and county.
That 5 percent drop is not a number that has Jensen popping the “mission accomplished” champagne. “We have got to do better than that,” he said.
They are working on it from various fronts. Remarkably, supervisors in Jensen’s office and that of Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner now cooperatively review every case of violent crime brought to the state to see if the feds have standing. A murder of an individual is a state crime, but a murder that involves taking the victim to an ATM involves interstate commerce and has federal standing. The same applies for gun violence connected to an interstate drug ring and gun crimes committed by felons. Gardner has been “a great partner” in this collaboration, Jensen said.
He also works closely with the current St. Louis County prosecutor. Wesley Bell, who will soon have that job, is off-limits to Jensen because Bell is still a political candidate until the November 6 election.
“Given the resources available from the federal government and the success of the federal probate office, we try to pick up as many cases as we can,” Jensen said, “with the ultimate goal of reducing violent crime.”
Jensen, a federal prosecutor, unsurprisingly argues that prosecution is one essential tactic to addressing a violent crime crisis. “You can’t let people commit violent crime after violent crime without punishment,” he said.
But his metric of success is reduction in violent crime, not increase in prosecution. He also uses his office to pursue violent crime deterrence and prevention, and he believes those are more promising long-term strategies than prosecution.
“Jeff Jensen understands there is no law enforcement solution,” said James Clark of Better Family Life, one of Jensen’s core community partners. “This is a family crisis, a community crisis. It’s refreshing to see someone in that position say, ‘We need people immersed in this to lead us out.’”
Jensen has started a series of public service announcements on local urban radio, using a good cop/bad cop strategy with community partners. He will have someone who lost a parent or child to violent crime recommend Better Family Life’s de-escalation centers, which were designed as immediate crisis resolution for people known by loved ones to be heading toward a violent confrontation. Clark said they have de-escalated 54 potentially violent conflicts since 2016. And Jensen himself plays bad guy on the radio, telling potential violent criminals that he is coming for them if they strike.
Jensen has a couple of ways to monitor what the street is saying, and he is picking up chatter that suggests his message is getting out. He has received court permission to wiretap various suspected criminal conspiracies for interstate commerce (drug rings), and people awaiting trial sometimes speak candidly even when there is a standard verbal warning that their call or conversation may be monitored.
“There is quite a bit of complaining about the increase in federal prosecution,” Jensen said. “That message should have a deterrent factor.”
The real hope, however, lies in crime prevention. Aristotle said that poverty is the father of crime and revolution and crime is disorganized revolution. Jensen has his own aphorism for that. “No factor impacts bullets more than jobs,” he said. “Jobs stop the bullets.”
Jensen has become a sponge for local programs that do workforce development for people in poverty who feel a lack of options. The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, SLATE, Demetrius Johnson Foundation and Better Family Life are among his partners.
“We need to make sure people are gainfully employed in jobs they are proud of,” he said. “Not only does that stop crime, it starts generational change.”
He convenes regular meetings with members of such community groups, along with the Clergy Coalition, police chaplains and police leaders across all jurisdictions, where any strategy to drive down violent crime from anywhere across the gamut of prevention, deterrence, investigation, prosecution and rehabilitation will be considered.
“We talk about what we can possibly do to reduce violent crime,” Jensen said. “We have some very candid discussions. I agree that we are not going to arrest and prosecute our way out of the problem. It has to be a community effort. That’s why I spend so much time working with groups that try to provide jobs and direct people to the de-escalation centers. But prosecution is part of the solution.”
Working directly with grass-roots groups in neighborhoods that suffer from violent crime, Jensen gets more face time with the people who are suffering the most from this crisis than one would expect from a middle-aged white prosecutor commissioned by the 45th president of the United States.
“When I meet people in the community, they don’t complain about increased federal prosecutions of violent crime,” Jensen said. “They complain about violent crime.”
