T he St. Louis City Justice Center was supposed to make things better.

Forty-five people in custody have died since the high-security facility opened in 2002 through February of this year, including 29 who were pronounced dead after being transported to area hospitals, according to public records.

A federal lawsuit against the city over jail conditions describes officers using excessive force, chemical agents and water shut-offs to control those in custody. There have been multiple riots. A correctional officer was taken hostage. The closure of the city’s second jail forced hundreds more people into the already troubled facility. As that happened, the number of officers staffing the city jail dwindled.

About a quarter of the roughly 800 jail residents are on psychotropic medication, said Doug Burris, a consultant who studied the facility. Burris has now been tasked with starting the jail’s latest makeover as interim commissioner of the city’s Corrections Division. He said he intends to be a stopgap until more progress is made, and until a permanent leader is named.

“I am not counting days because I’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said.

Before him, several other commissioners were welcomed with the confidence of the city’s mayor that their plans would change things. But along the way, they were fired, or demoted, or left before any long-term reform could happen.

Former leaders say that the jail is a microcosm of the broader community’s toughest challenges — crime, untreated mental illness, concentrated poverty and indifference — and will not succeed until city officials address those issues. They say putting people in an isolated jail system hides those problems and, in some cases, makes them worse.

While recently unseated Mayor Tishaura O. Jones expressed confidence in a new direction for the St. Louis City Justice Center, history shows that lasting change will take more than replacing leaders and buildings.

Jail residents await trial without much to do or look at. There is no outdoor recreation, despite increasingly cramped conditions. Most windows are blurred.

The jail is so locked down that one of its many former leaders described the City Justice Center as a “potential powder keg.”

B urris’ review of jail conditions , released in January, flagged everything from security to health care and a lack of access to library books. At least 52 people had been in the jail around that time for more than two years; one man had been in custody for seven years, according to a jail roster Burris provided.

“Having anyone in here for more than one year is causing more harm than good,” he said.

During a rare tour of the facility on Jan. 24, the concrete floors showed enormous patches of paint worn off. An empty basketball court didn’t have a goal.

On a TV screen in the women’s area, Rocky Balboa carried Adrian in his arms on their wedding day, an allusion to happiness and protection. Offscreen, there was little space to walk around. A crack in a light fixture was taped with a maxi pad.

A woman named Fontana Sneed hollered through a nearby cell door. She got the attention of Tammy Ross, who had temporarily taken the helm after former Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah’s abrupt departure.

Sneed said she wasn’t supposed to be locked up anymore.

“Let me check on it,” said Ross, jotting the woman’s name down on her hand as a reminder.

Sneed, 43, said in a short interview with The Marshall Project - St. Louis during that tour that she hadn’t been able to shower or exercise in the past three or four days.

“They are just being ornery,” she said.

Court records showed that Sneed was to be released on her own recognizance three days prior. She had been arrested in early January for allegedly headbutting and spitting at an EMS worker at an addiction treatment center. Sneed was eventually transferred from the jail to the state prison system for a parole violation.

In another area, one man cried out, pleading for his wedding ring. Ross said he should have been able to keep the ring on him, an exception to the no-jewelry policy.

The rest of the men on the wing were quiet. A few lucky ones had their hands on a short supply of computer tablets. Others held blank stares. Ross looked on with approval, describing the silent men as “seasoned.”

“You can pretty much tell,” Ross said, “they know how to jail.”

Rising tensions between the jail administration and the sheriff’s office later culminated with Ross in handcuffs.

On Feb. 14, Sheriff Alfred Montgomery directed a deputy to arrest Ross for not allowing them to interview a detainee who had accused a deputy of sexual assault. They marched Ross out of the jail and across the street to the courthouse, where she was released. Ross filed a subsequent lawsuit accusing the sheriff of battery, unlawful arrest and violating her civil rights.

I n 2022, following years of pressure from activists and changing societal views on mass incarceration, Mayor Jones followed through on a campaign promise to finally close the Medium Security Institution, better known as the Workhouse.

The Workhouse was notorious for its harsh conditions — a hot, cramped facility with broken windows and occasional escapes. It typically housed women and people jailed for low-level offenses who couldn’t afford bond. Now, everyone is housed at the City Justice Center.

During one of several riots in the past five years, men with their heads covered lit fires and chanted in unison from broken windows: “We want court dates!”

The City Justice Center replaced the former City Jail, which was known for warehousing people whose best chance at being heard was howling at passersby.

“The City Jail is St. Louis’ most prominent example of community indifference to the decay of our correctional system,” stated a 1973 Missouri Public Interest Research Group Foundation report. In subsequent decades, members of the St. Louis Grand Jury, which used to inspect city jails with more rigor and regularity, according to public records, also rang alarm bells about people with mental illness in City Jail.

Opening Statement

“Their treatment is clearly inhumane and shameful and should be changed before anything else at the jail,” the group reported in August 1995. “Otherwise, the State of Missouri is just being barbaric to people who are helplessly tortured by their own minds.”

In a March 18 speech to reporters and activists marking the ongoing demolition of the Workhouse, Jones mentioned her commitment to Burris and improving the justice system.

“While the conditions at the City Justice Center are better than they were at the Workhouse, they can, and they must, be better,” she said.

Jones declined an interview request from The Marshall Project - St. Louis after that event.

On March 23, another man in jail custody was pronounced dead at an area hospital.

Whoever goes on to lead the Corrections Division after Burris, St. Louis has been a place where jail administrator careers fizzle out.

“Heads roll,” said Ed Bushmeyer, 74, who, over decades, held many positions at City Hall, including public safety director. “It’s easier to find the fall guy or gal than it is to fix the underlying problems.”

T he past generation of Corrections Division commissioners started out with high expectations before their untimely departures, according to interviews with every permanent commissioner since 1998.

They each pointed to some of the same persistent challenges that plagued their experiences: unaddressed mental health challenges among detainees, inadequate and inexperienced staffing, budgetary concerns, infrastructure woes and lack of involvement from the broader community. More recent leaders said the job had become increasingly politicized, more about getting votes than concentrating on fixing core problems.

Alice Pollard Buckingham, 78, recalled rising through the ranks to the top position in 1998, only to be demoted in 2001 to make way for a new leader in a new administration.

Dora Schriro, who replaced Buckingham, was tasked with getting the City Justice Center up and running. She said there weren’t sufficient policies and procedures in place when it opened.

“It was extremely chaotic,” Schriro, 75, said of running the division from 2001 to 2003.

Schriro was temporarily suspended after five people escaped from the Workhouse in 2002, but her career advanced after her departure the following year.

Gene Stubblefield, a former warden at the state prison in Pacific, replaced Schriro in 2003.

We Are Witnesses

“One of the worst decisions I’ve ever made,” Stubblefield, 68, said of working for the city.

He said he tried to establish structure and address blind spots. He said city leaders cut his budget, which led to staffing shortages and shifts run by people who were not prepared.

Still, for seven years, he said, things went relatively well.

Then, between August 2010 and September 2011, there were four escapes, including two men who slid out of the City Justice Center on a rope of bedsheets, right across the street from the mayor’s office.

Stubblefield was suspended amid the escapes. A mayor’s office review of jail operations reported a “systemic failure of leadership,” leading to Stubblefield’s dismissal. He said he fought to clear his name for years.

Dale Glass, Stubblefield’s successor, fired dozens of staff members when he arrived in 2012. He bolstered his budget with a U.S. Marshals Service contract to house people from the federal system that brought in millions of dollars. He said the revenue was used for repairs, equipment and programs that sought to keep people out of jail. The jail population dropped from nearly 2,000 to about 800.

Glass ran out of momentum. COVID-19 shut down visits, cut back on authorized time out of cells, and caused uncertainty about court appearance and release dates. Riots broke out. While he was in charge, 27 people in custody died.

An ongoing federal lawsuit against the city and various jail personnel claims “systemic use of excessive chemical agents and water shut-offs” to retaliate against people at the City Justice Center. In March, a federal jury sided with one of the defendants in a separate criminal case, alleging that a correctional officer deprived a detainee of their civil rights by pepper spraying him while he was handcuffed, among other things.

Jones said in a statement shortly after becoming mayor in 2021 that failed leadership in the jails left the city with “a huge mess to clean up.”

Shortly after that, Glass said, he chose to retire.

When Clemons-Abdullah was hired in 2021, then-acting Public Safety Director Dan Isom said in the city’s announcement that leaders “look forward to working with her to bring the City Justice Center up to full operation after decades of neglect.”

Three years later, a press release from the mayor’s office said she had been “separated” from the city. Thirteen people in jail custody died while she was commissioner, according to public records. The Detention Facilities Oversight Board and others criticized her for not giving them adequate access to the jail. Clemons-Abdullah said rigidity was needed to maintain the integrity of the facility.

“St. Louis’ problem is they don’t like to do things the right way,” Clemons-Abdullah said in late February.

I n early April, Burris was settling in. He hung personal plaques on his office walls and a big framed poster of the late Congressman John Lewis.

He said he had already seen progress. Frontline staffing had risen 30% to about 90 people. Residents had access to one free telephone call a week. Job trainers and library books were welcomed inside. He was encouraged that only 15 out of 148 people booked into the jail in the previous week needed detox. He hadn’t gotten anywhere on creating a new court docket for long-term residents, but he had reached out to the presiding judge.

“We’ve got to have more community support to keep it safe here and help reduce recidivism,” Burris said.