Closing the Workhouse
St. Louis, MO
Population: 1-500,000 | Government type: City | Topic: Thriving Communities
Photo: Close the Workhouse Campaign
The Program
St. Louis’s medium-security jail, known colloquially as the Workhouse, is an outdated facility with numerous complaints about rodents, mold, and abusive jail practices over the last few decades. The campaign to close the Workhouse, which opened in 1966, was officially launched three years ago. When the city built the newer justice center in 2010, they planned to close the Workhouse. With the growth of the war on drugs and mass incarceration, the population increased and both facilities ended up full to capacity. Additionally, the city is also contracted to house federal detainees in the justice center.
Local advocates and community activists have made bail reform at the local and state level a priority in recent years. For example, the Bail Project established a fund that has been successful in facilitating the release of individuals awaiting trial at a faster pace, thus reducing the total number of people incarcerated in the Workhouse. The effort resulted in 95 percent of those bailed out returning for their court dates. At the start of 2020, 100 people were still in the facility, but with the urgency created by Covid-19, the speed of processing releases was increased and at least 30 more people were released over the course of the year. However, due to a recent outbreak at the justice center, as of early January 2021, there were 144 in the facility.
The public campaign had been advocating for the city to close the Workhouse for years. The city Board of Alders introduced several resolutions asking the mayor and Director of Public Safety to come forth with a plan for the closure. However, those resolutions did not pass out of the Public Safety committee.
After several years of public pressure, the Close the Workhouse campaign adjusted its strategy to focus on defunding the Workhouse through the budget process. Recognizing that a bill to close the workhouse was unlikely to pass out of the Public Safety Committee, the Coalition to Close the Workhouse had to get creative. As such, the supportive alders brought forth an amendment to defund the Workhouse only when the final budget made it to the full floor vote. This tactic brought an element of surprise and left many alders in the position of voting for the amendment rather than risking the perception that they were voting to keep the Workhouse open.
Alders, including the President of the Board of Aldermen, who were unhappy with the introduction of the amendment started looking for a procedural way to drop the amendment. While they were ultimately successful in dropping the amendment, it quickly became public and these leaders faced a significant backlash from both the coalition and the community. In August 2020, a week after the budget passed with the Workhouse remaining funded, the President of the Board felt the public pressure and introduced a bill that sought to close the Workhouse by the end of the 2020 calendar year. This five-month window would ostensibly provide time for the Department of Corrections to create a plan to transfer people to the justice center and to retrain Workhouse employees or transfer them to other facilities. The bill passed unanimously but without the supplemental budget amendment that actually defunded the Workhouse. As such, some city leaders and advocates remain concerned the facility would not actually close. Those city leaders were correct.
December 31, 2020 came and went and the Workhouse remained open. The Director of Corrections had also not supplied the Board of Aldermen with a plan for closure to meet that deadline. Supporters of closing the workhouse have introduced a supplemental appropriations bill to defund the workhouse, yet that bill remains stuck in committee. The coalition is regrouping to think through its strategy to add new pressure points for accountability. As an added demand, in efforts to further decrease the jail population, advocates are pushing for an end to the contract to hold federal detainees in city jails. This change would save money and create more space.
Collaborative Governance
The Close the Workhouse Campaign has done phenomenal work to change public sentiment. This has been particularly important given the resistance from many elected officials. The lead organizer has direct experience with the Workhouse and knows first-hand how damaging this system can be. Her personal experience, and that of other organizers, has grounded their efforts.
While the coalition was led by the Close the Workhouse Campaign—a collaboration between the Arch City Defenders, Action St. Louis, and the Bail Project—it grew to include unions and labor, church groups, and others. Because of its expansive nature, the coalition successfully brought together a wide array of audiences to learn more about the moral and fiscal impacts of closing the Workhouse. Together they led neighborhood meetings and church groups to educate the community on a variety of concerns, such as the individuals who would be released and the crimes of which they were accused.
Emphasis on equity
The cash bail system is unfair and discriminates against people of color and low-income people. The majority of people in pre-trial detention in the Workhouse are nonviolent offenders who often wait 6-18 months for their court dates and trials. Being held for a day or two, or even just overnight, can have a significant impact on families. Being held for weeks or months on end means that people miss indefinite days of work as well as family caretaking duties. The impacts of cash bail faced by many people of color and low-income folks go beyond the tangible effects of income and job loss. Children are often put into state care when parents are missing for extended periods of time, and families can lose housing if the primary earner for the family is incarcerated. Because the majority of people left in the Workhouse are Black, closing it is a way of supporting the Black community as a whole, as well as individuals and families. A few violent offenders would be transferred to the other city jail.
While the principal goal is to decrease the incarcerated population sufficiently so that the Workhouse is not necessary, the bill to defund the Workhouse goes beyond closure. It includes a participatory budgeting process for the money that is saved through the closure. The total amount would be just over $6 million if the city also stops accepting federal detainees. This component will highlight the needs of the community, which are exponential, and will happen at both the ward and city-wide levels. A follow-up board bill that creates a process for participatory budgeting at a city-wide level with these funds. That bill has not yet been introduced as of this writing in January 2021.
City residents have been clear that the city needs to prioritize mental health care and increase substance abuse support and housing access. The bill accordingly creates a “reimagining public safety fund” which is earmarked for mental health funding, housing, and re-entry support. One component of this fund is a pilot program for behavioral health, designed to ensure that mental health providers respond to relevant calls alongside police. While imperfect, this is a first step in the long-term work towards a more comprehensive system in which St. Louis defunds inflated police budgets and shifts those resources into the services that will benefit BIPOC and low-income communities.
Analysis
Preemption: Jails and detention centers are run and funded by a variety of actors, from private contractors to all levels of government. City governments are less likely than counties to have authority over their jails and prisons and any funding from the federal government makes it more difficult to shut down facilities.
Local government dynamics: The board of alderman is large - 32 members - and there is a range of political views in the body. The more progressive wing of the board of alders is supporting the campaign and using their power inside the chamber to help keep the pressure on to close down the Workhouse for good. It is important to recognize the intersection between bail reform and decarceration. If not for bail reform efforts that decreased the jail population, it would have been harder to build support. Further, building strong narratives about both the moral impact and economic impacts of closing a jail. Some community stakeholders buy-in because of the human impact of the Workhouse. Others buy-in because they see it as good economic policy. The campaign needed both groups of stakeholders to build public pressure.
Policy strength: While the number of individuals inside the Workhouse has been steadily decreasing, there are still individuals trapped in a decaying unsafe facility. This effort to defund, close and support these individuals, who are often people of color, as they return to their families and lives is critical. Cities and counties, especially with large populations jailed for minor offenses, that also have financial leverage over their jails and prisons should fight to defund and propose alternatives.
Last updated: January 19, 2021
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