Former inmate David Kutrip wanted to hear jail officials talk about the old and proposed safeguards against alleged abuse and neglect in St. Louis City jails.
He sat in the Kennedy Room at City Hall on Tuesday as each official approached a microphone.
But he couldn’t hear anything.
Kutrip, who is disabled, says he lost 90 percent of his hearing after he fell in the shower at the St. Louis Medium Security Institution (or Workhouse) and was denied medical attention for a month.
Kutrip has sued the City of St. Louis over this alleged incident, and the case remains in federal court.
His father, Gerry Thomas Kutrip, took notes for him to read.
Although they never addressed specific alleged incidents such as Kutrip’s, prison officials presented information Tuesday before the Board of Aldermen’s Public Safety Committee in response to a scathing report from the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri.
The report cites abuse, sexual misconduct, medical neglect, squalor, intimidation, abuse of power and destruction of evidence within the St. Louis Justice Center and Workhouse.
Public Safety Director Charles Bryson said he could not address specific cases documented in the ACLU-EM report because of possible federal investigations and lawsuits.
Instead, a corrections officer trainer and a medical official within the prison system presented information about strict guidelines regarding correctional officers’ contact with inmates, how medicine is distributed and how sick inmates are monitored.
“They had a pretty stacked deck up there. Didn’t you see all of them people talking up there?” Gerry Kutrip asked.
“How come none of them saw my son when he was in solitary confinement because they said they didn’t have a place for him? How come none of them saw my boy when he had blood coming out of his ears?”
Redditt Hudson, an ACLU-EM program associate who authored the report, questioned City officials’ failure to mention any specific allegations in their presentation.
“It would have been nice for the mainstream media to be able to give people a real sense of how serious the problems are,” Hudson said.
Bryson said it is time for the ACLU and the prison system to work together. He said the ACLU issued the report to the media before the prison officials could respond.
“We can go on and play this game of gotcha with the ACLU, but what does it accomplish?” Bryson asked. “This must end immediately.”
Bryson said he wants to meet once a month with prison and union leaders to discuss policies and any issues in the prisons. He also wants the director of personnel to conduct exit interviews of willing corrections officers and have ACLU officials create the questions. He said he also wants to develop a system where the ACLU can review complaints.
John Chasnoff, program director for the ACLU-EM, said he needs more information before the organization could make that commitment. “We’re open to exploring the discussion to see if it is a productive outlet for reform,” he said.
Chasnoff considered the officials’ presentation vague and uninformative. “Most of our questions are still unanswered,” he said. “We would like to see testimony by corrections officers and inmates who can tell their stories. Then we would get a lot of direct evidence of what takes place in these facilities.”
Hudson said the ACLU may consider Bryson’s offer in the future, “but in the here and now, we have issues of accountability relative to the human rights and civil liberties violations that were brought to us by inmates and corrections officers.”
JoAnn Williams, business representative organizer for Carpenters’ District Council of Greater St. Louis and Vicinity, which is the union for City corrections officers, said she wants justice for the corrections officers and is interested in Bryson’s offer to meet with the union.
Williams said people often forget that the corrections officers endure the same environment as the inmates. “We average being outnumbered by 60-1 on any given day,” she said.
She said the corrections officers are wondering why their complaints are not taken as seriously as the inmates’.
Williams suggested to the Public Safety Committee that an independent ombudsman be appointed to conduct investigations within the prison system. “It would have a lot more credibility to the public,” she said, than an internal investigation.
Gene Stubblefield, commissioner for the St. Louis jail system, said both jails consistently have received good marks from the U.S. Department of Justice inspection and the St. Louis City Health Department.
In April, the City was randomly selected to participate in a survey from the U.S. Department of Justice to determine if any issues of rape or assaults existed within the jail system. Each inmate and corrections officer was interviewed, Stubblefield said. The results of that study have not been completed. Stubblefield said the media must obtain results of the inspections and the study through the Freedom of Information Act.
Although Stubblefield would not address all issues in the ACLU report, he did say the allegation regarding destruction of evidence is false. ACLU officials say Stubblefield ordered his assistant to hide or destroy documents. Stubblefield said he ordered his assistant to move the documents for safekeeping.
“Historically, if something happens, things disappear,” he said. “It would be silly of us to destroy any documents that would support us.”