St. Louis Mayor
Francis Slay Studies
Privatizing Jail Operations
DOUG MOORE / St. Louis Post-Dispatch 1aug03
St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said Friday that he is "seriously looking" at privatizing the city's Corrections Department following a long list of mishaps in the past two years, including the mistaken release of four prisoners last week.
St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay
Slay said he is putting together a committee "to look at the whole process" of the city's Corrections Department. That review will include whether it would be more effective to privatize the department. The department employs 530 people and has a budget of $23 million.
In the latest incident, three men were released because workers did not know how to read paperwork that should have kept the prisoners in jail - not release them. Another man also was released, because a warrant was not listed in the system for the prisoner although he was in custody for violating his probation and awaiting a revocation hearing.
"This has been very frustrating for me," Slay said, two days after his office made public that the four prisoners had been released from the Justice Center. Slay said his office has worked with the Police Department to do surprise checks at the City Workhouse and Justice Center to make sure procedures are being followed.
"Obviously, that hasn't been enough," he said.
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The mayor stressed that he stands by his appointment in November of Sam Simon to public safety director. Simon oversees the two jails. Simon said there is no excuse for the problems with the jails, but he did say the recent departure of three managers, including Corrections Commissioner Dora Schriro, has created a lack of leadership.
Simon said the 12-person committee will include managers from various parts of city operations, including the personnel office, the budget division and the Health Department as well as union representatives for corrections workers and a member of the American Correctional Association.
"Although we're at a real concern stage, I view it as an opportunity," Simon said Friday. He said he met with Sheriff James Murphy and Police Chief Joe Mokwa "and asked them to commit to what the mayor has given me as a mandate when I came in here, and that is to create confidence in the corrections system."
Slay appointed Simon nine months ago after five prisoners escaped unnoticed from the Workhouse and four others walked out by using the identification of others.
Last week's mistaken release was the second at the Justice Center but the first since Schriro left as corrections commissioner in June to head the Arizona Department of Corrections.
Four months before she resigned, workers at the new Justice Center transferred a prisoner awaiting trial on charges of attempted kidnapping to the Frontenac Police Department, where he was wanted on a separate charge. He was later released from Frontenac.
Simon said Friday that the man released from Frontenac and the four men released July 25 remained at large.
Slay said that there has been no disciplinary action but that last week's incident was under investigation.
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