St. Louis’ criminal justice reforms are under direct attack from Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, with the help of some powerful local, state and federal accomplices.
In the past two years, St. Louis has succeeded in accomplishing some hard-fought reforms. In 2018, state legislators came together to raise the age where a child is automatically certified in court as an adult to 18 by January 2021. Through St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner’s diversion programs and advocacy organizations’ bail-relief initiatives, the jail population has declined so much that St. Louis city aldermen recently voted to close the Medium Security Institution (known as the Workhouse) by the end of the year. This spring, the city started implementing the violence-interruption program Cure Violence and has been working to gain the community’s trust even through the pandemic.
In one fell swoop, Parson is working to undo it all — via special session no less. And he has help from St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson, U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt.
On July 27, Parson convened a special session to push through the six-part Senate Bill 1, which included lowering the age to 12 where children can be convicted as adults and sent to adult prison for unlawful use of a weapon and armed criminal action.
The bill undermined “the spirit of the landmark bipartisan Raise the Age reform,” which is set to be fully implemented in just three short months, wrote Rev. Dr. Starsky D. Wilson, president and CEO of Deaconess Foundation, and Kristian Blackmon, a local organizer with the D.C.-based Campaign for Youth Justice, in an August 12 column for The American.
“There is widespread consensus that the adult system is more harmful for children and unequipped to meet their needs,” Wilson and Blackmon wrote. “The juvenile system is better designed to provide children, even those with serious offenses, with education, therapy and intensive restorative programming that is mostly absent from the adult system.”
Parson had to make this move look less horrific by bundling it with other things, including a pretrial witness protection fund that Democrats argue has no funding, allowing certain witness statements to be admissible under law (which already exists through case law), and increasing the penalties for endangering a child and selling weapons to children under 18. (Somehow a child is defined as under 18 for part of his plan.)
And finally, Parson wants to eliminate the residency requirement for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and allow an officer to live within an hour from the city. Parson’s proposal also prohibits requiring any public safety employee for the City of St. Louis to be a city resident.
But it’s not all on Parson. Krewson, Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards and Police Chief John Hayden have done anything and everything to throw out the residency requirement, even bypass city voters (it’s on the November 3 ballot) and go along with sending 12 years old to adult prison.
The bill was set to sail through the Missouri Senate and the House, but then Parson got greedy. On August 10, Parson announced he was expanding his special session on violent crime to include a new provision “to assist with the growing backlog of murder cases in St. Louis.”
He proposed giving Schmitt concurrent jurisdiction in the City of St. Louis – but nowhere else in the state – to “take on some of the murder cases that have not yet been prosecuted.” Not only did it draw the ire from Gardner’s supporters, but it was met with vehement opposition from the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys.
“Any attempt to vest the attorney general with jurisdiction to prosecute homicides without the request of the elected prosecuting attorney fundamentally changes our system of local, independent prosecution that has served the citizens of Missouri well since 1875,” the association’s statement read.
Even Republican House leaders balked.
“Given the fact the governor expanded the call as one of our committees was considering the bill he originally proposed, we think it’s important to take a step back and give additional thought and attention to each part of the plan,” a joint statement from Republican House leadership said.
