As City officials try to discredit a recent report on conditions at the City’s two jails, more inmates and correctional officers are speaking out about their experiences in an attempt to bring attention to what they describe as systematic wrongdoings inside the facilities.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri says it has been investigating the two facilities – the St. Louis City Justice Center and the Medium Security Institute, also known as the Workhouse – since 2007. Since the report’s release on March 25, a number of inmates and correctional officers not cited in the report have contacted the ACLU-EM to tell their stories, with some expressing frustration that Mayor Francis G. Slay and other City officials are not doing anything to address the problems.
“I just hope other people come forward and don’t let Slay or all these other folks in higher power continue to intimidate them,” said former correctional officer Angela Jones. “It’s about being fair and accountable and doing the right thing at this point.”
Relying mostly on quotes from six unnamed correctional officers and nine inmates, the ACLU report says there is “endemic abuse” and “patterns of police violations” in St. Louis’ jails, citing poor medical care, overcrowding, physical abuse, sexual misconduct and improper living conditions.
City counselor and acting chief of staff Patricia Hageman and Commissioner Gene Stubblefield questioned the report’s credibility because of the anonymity of five of the six guards who are sources.
Stubblefield has not returned calls to the American seeking comment. On Tuesday, he deferred calls to Ed Rhode, a spokesman for Slay.
“With every kind of corruption we’ve seen in this city, it’s the same pattern,” said Redditt Hudson, author of the ACLU report.
“It’s the same pattern – ignore it or deny it and attack those exposing it. It’s never about accountability or responsibility. The ACLU refuses to ignore these violations, and we won’t stop defending the rights guaranteed to all of us.”
Sleeping on the floor
Meanwhile, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the inmate population has dropped to at least a six-year low.
But Kenneth Ellis, who was released on March 27, tells a different story.
“I’m 54 years old, and sleeping on that floor was not conducive to my health,” Ellis said.
Of the three days he spent at the Justice Center, he said two days were spent sleeping on the floor in a crowded cell. He said he went two days without receiving his prescribed high-blood pressure medication.
“The first night I was there, somebody asked a female officer something and she told him, ‘Shut the (expletive) up or I’ll come in there. You don’t want me to beat your (expletive),’” he said.
Former Workhouse inmate John Willis said he spent 80 days at the facility but was only supposed to spend 45. He said he was released only after he threatened to call the ACLU.
“She beat people and send people to the hole for no reason,” Willis said of a correctional officer he identified as “Capt. Mitchell.”
“I tried to talk to her to see if she could sign off of this request, and she told me to get the (expletive) of her way. She punched me twice, knocked me down and I got out of her way.”
‘You know this is wrong’
Although the report talks mostly of guards mistreating inmates, Jones said the correctional officers are victims too. Sometimes, level-one correctional officers are put in dangerous situations where they must defend themselves, Jones said.
“You know this is wrong but you still have to do it,” said Jones, who left corrections in December 2006 and now works with juveniles. “If you have a conscience, after awhile it begins to wear on you.”
She continued, “You have some people who take their job too far. When you see everyone take on this mentality, it becomes bigger than you and you know this is not what you signed up for.”
After four years she found the job too “stressful.” It turned into something she did not expect.
“There was a young man whose head was bleeding from an injury he sustained prior to being locked up,” Jones said.
“When I proceeded to take him to medical for treatment, the nurse and I got into a dispute about why he needed to be bandaged up. For that I got wrote up, because they said I was not medical staff.”
She said the turning point came when an inmate attacked her in the “bull pen” but no other officer was around to help her.
“At times you would have 100 to 150 inmates on one floor with only six officers working, opposed to 13,” she said.
“It became a very dangerous place to work.”
Jones said when she and several other officers tried to contact then Public Safety Director Sam Simon to put a handle on the issues, he did not respond.
Simon resigned during the Fire Chief Sherman George controversy, and Slay appointed Charles Bryson to replace him.
‘They try to retaliate’
“It has been a hidden factor for a long time, way before I got there,” Dolores Rich said of the problems in St. Louis’ corrections system.
Rich worked at the Justice Center and the Workhouse between 1994 and 2005 before she was terminated (wrongfully, she said) for not returning to work.
Rich, now receiving full disability payments, filed suit against Corrections in 2005, claiming they ordered her back to work against her doctor’s orders.
“If they don’t like you, they would try to retaliate against you,” Rich said. “They try to terminate you, give you so many write-ups and suspend you so many times.”
In her 11 years, mostly as a level-one correctional officer, Rich alleges she was sexually harassed by her supervisor and witnessed widespread drug trafficking within the facility.
“I’ve seen a lot of residents put into maximum solitary because of something that they didn’t even do,” Rich said. “But if you want your job, you better not say anything.”
In one incident, Rich said her superiors accused her of sexually molesting a disturbed female inmate whom she was trying to help shower because no one else would go near her because of her odor.
“It brought tears to my eyes because I was only trying to help someone help themselves,” Rich said, crying. “That’s all I was doing, because this girl needed help.”
The accident stemming from her termination happened around 2004.
Rich said other officers slipped and fell on her, damaging two discs in her back, while they were trying to subdue a female inmate who had grabbed Rich’s handcuffs. Rich had back surgery and received workmen’s compensation.
She said she sent several doctor’s statements to her bosses, asking for them to place her in an area without residents, but they ignored her.
“They would have me subdue an inmate or climb a ladder, and every time I would do that cartilage would tear,” she said.
Several months before her firing, Rich said, she called off from work nearly 20 times, mainly because of surgeries and severe knee and back pain, for which she now takes morphine and codeine.
Her lawsuit against Corrections is pending.
“I just wish more people would come out and take a stand before they end up like I am,” she said.
ACLU Executive Director Brenda Jones and Redditt Hudson will be on Sunday Morning Live on Majic 104.9 FM at 10 a.m. Sunday (April 12) to talk about the ACLU’s investigation.
