Letter to Mayor Krewson, Public Safety Directory Edwards, and Commissioner Glass - Congresswoman Bush Sends Letter to St. Louis City Officials Calling for Full Transparency and Human Rights Protections Following Saturday's Uprising at the City Justice Center

Letter

Dear Mayor Krewson, Public Safety Director Edwards, and Commissioner Glass,
I am reaching out with grave concerns regarding the most recent uprising on Saturday, February 6, 2021,
at the St. Louis City Justice Center (CJC). Per comments made by city officials during a press briefing on
Saturday, the uprising involving 117 people is the third such event at CJC since December. It comes as
tensions flare within the jail over health risks due to jail conditions and the rapid spread of COVID-19.
Further, many of the people detained at the Justice Center are still awaiting court dates and have not been
convicted of any crimes. This presents serious concerns around efforts to mitigate the risk of an outbreak
as people cycle in and out of these facilities each day.

This latest spate of unrest by people incarcerated at CJC comes amidst a raging pandemic that is making
its way through our nation's prisons and jails, including those in Missouri. As of February 2, 2021, the
Marshall Project had identified more than 372,583 infections and 2,359 deaths among people and staff in
our federal, state, and local correctional facilities, including 5,369 cases and at least 42 deaths across
Missouri's corrections system.
Prisons and jails are known as incubators for infectious disease outbreaks.
With nearly 1 in 5 incarcerated people testing positive for COVID-19 in Missouri, the infection rate for
the virus is nearly three times higher among Missouri's incarcerated population than the general
population.
Further, Missouri ranks in the top 20 of states for COVID-19 infections in prisons and jails.
The outbreaks in our state and local corrections facilities have also led to infections among staff, with at
least 2,522 cases and six deaths among Missouri's corrections staff.

Contrary to the concerns raised by those detained at the Justice Center, Public Safety Director Jimmie
Edwards, claimed that there were "zero COVID cases"
at the jail during a press conference following the
uprising. This news comes three weeks after comments by Commissioner Dale Glass, that on January 12,
2021 there were "30 active COVID-19 cases"between the Justice Center and the St. Louis Medium
Security Institution. As of Saturday, no cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed or publicly reported
among the 706 people detained at CJC;
however, given how rapidly the virus spreads in our correction
systems, many of us in the St. Louis community, including family members of those being detained, have
serious concerns about the city's transparency regarding COVID-19 disclosure, conditions of the jails,
and protocols related to those individuals who do become sick.
Moreover, communication shared by community members via social media noted some of the grievances
and demands by the men held inside of CJC and reflects the deep concerns they have about their personal
health and safety─issues they believe have gone ignored by city officials. In a post shared on Facebook,

the accounting reports that showers are infrequent, visitation from loved ones has been denied, and
personal protective equipment, regular temperature checks and testing for COVID-19 have not been
readily available to those who are detained.
The accounts also report that quarantine protocols for people
who are sick or exhibiting symptoms related to COVID-19 do not follow recommendations provided by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
and that heating systems within the facility
remains a constant problem particularly in these winter months.
As one first-person account indicated in
the post,
which has since been shared over 500 times, "we don't want to die from SARS COVID-19."
As it stands, Missouri is not planning on vaccinating those incarcerated until the third phase of
vaccination, despite a significantly higher risk of infection within our prisons and jails.

Instead, the state
has indicated it's plans to vaccinate corrections staff, but will wait to vaccinate incarcerated individuals as
some of the final people vaccinated in the state.
Other states are providing incarcerated people with
access to the vaccine to prevent uncontrollable spread of the virus that not only puts the lives of those
incarcerated at risk, but further burdens an already stretched health care system.

There are also concerns circling around retaliation against people who are incarcerated when complaints
are made regarding jail conditions. In the aftermath of the disturbances in December and January, a
number of people who had been detained at CJC were transferred to the Medium Security Institute (also
known as the Workhouse) with stricter security measures or were put into segregation for days on end.
During Saturday's events, signs could be seen hanging outside of the fourth floor broken windows
depicting concerns over the handling of those punished for the unrest, including pleas to "FREE 57," an
acknowledgment of the men who had been moved from CJC to the Workhouse in January. Attorneys at
Arch City Defenders, a St. Louis-based legal advocacy organization, also corroborated these concerns
based on grievances they've received through a special hotline regarding conditions at the City Justice Center and the Workhouse, including severe punishment involving the use of solitary confinement among individuals being held at CJC.
The severity of the events that have unfolded in recent weeks, in conjunction with a global pandemic that has rapidly spread across America's prisons and jails, requires immediate attention. Our community needs the City to take steps to be more transparent regarding the conditions at its jails, current COVID-19
protocols, and ensure the safety and rights of those individuals being held in these facilities are protected.
As such, I am requesting the following information from the City of St. Louis:
1. Based on data available to the City, what were the COVID-19 testing, case rates, hospitalizations,
and deaths among people detained at St. Louis City Justice Center and St. Louis Medium Security
Institution as of Saturday, February 6th? What have those rates been since the start of the
pandemic? Will you commit to publicly disclosing this data and updating it daily on the Division
of Corrections website?
2. What public health information is being shared with incarcerated individuals, their families, and
other visitors? How often are relevant updates being shared?
3. What is the protocol for providing personal protective equipment (PPE) and face masks to people
detained at St. Louis City Justice Center and St. Louis Medium Security Institution? How much
PPE and how many face masks are currently available? Is the use of such PPE in line with
recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?
4. What is the current breakdown of pretrial and post-conviction offenses within both the St. Louis
City Justice Center and St. Louis Medium Security Institution? Among both pretrial and
post-conviction offenses, what is the current breakdown of the type of charge within both the St.
Louis City Justice Center and St. Louis Medium Security Institution? Further, what was the
average length of time in pretrial detention prior to the pandemic? What is the average length of
time in pretrial detention as of today? If there has been an increase, what factors have contributed
to it?
5. Based on funds appropriated by Congress in the CARES Act, the City of St. Louis received
$1,392,940
17
through the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance. How specifically
has the City utilized these funds to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in its jails?
6. What is the protocol for use of segregation or solitary confinement, including maximum and
average lengths of stay in segregation at the St. Louis City Justice Center and St. Louis Medium
Security Institution? What is the status of those individuals who have been held in segregation as
a result of the uprisings on December 29, 2020, January 1, 2021, and February 6, 2021?
7. What is the status of those individuals who have been transferred from St. Louis City Justice
Center to the St. Louis Medium Security Institution following the uprising on January 1, 2021?
8. As vaccines become available to incarcerated people in Missouri, what factors will guide vaccine
distribution within the City's jails, and what are the City's plans for prioritizing the most
vulnerable and achieving herd immunity among the local jail population?
9. How has the City prioritized or facilitated the release of individuals, particularly those who are
pregnant, medically vulnerable, or elderly and who are awaiting trial at St. Louis City Justice
Center and St. Louis Medium Security Institution?
10. What is the protocol for temperature settings within the facilities at St. Louis City Justice Center
and St. Louis Medium Security Institution between the winter months of November-March, as
well as during the summer months between June and September? Additionally, please provide
daily logs of nighttime temperatures at St. Louis City Justice Center and St. Louis Medium
Security Institution over the past two months.
As a pastor and a nurse, I believe that we must lead with compassion. Every person in our society
deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Whether a person is incarcerated or not, unhoused or not,
suffering through substance use or not, has a disability or not, we all deserve to have our fundamental rights and civil liberties protected. It is our obligation as public officials to ensure equal justice and
protection under the law for every person in our St. Louis community.
Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter and our shared mission to ensure the safety, health,
and wellbeing of our community members, and to ensure that we are transparent and accountable to our
entire community, especially as we work together to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Given the urgency
of this situation, I kindly ask for a response to my inquiry no later than February 15, 2021.
Sincerely,

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