After several years of controversy over her management of St. ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëùµ¼º½Íøַ’ downtown jail, city Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah is now on leave — and has been, it turns out, since late last week.
Is this part of the reform that we and others have clamored for in the jail’s operation? Who knows?
In what has become the most predictable aspect of the city’s otherwise chaotically unpredictable detention system, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ administration is refusing to reveal even the most basic information about Clemons-Abdullah’s absence. This familiar, knee-jerk secrecy surrounding such an important city function is insulting to the taxpayers and anathema to reform.
Jones made jail reform a centerpiece of her 2021 mayoral campaign, but that system has instead become arguably her heaviest albatross in office.
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Her early decision to close the controversial medium-security jail known as the workhouse — a decision driven by politics with apparently little regard for its practical impact — set the stage for problems that followed in the downtown jail: Overcrowding, inmate deaths, medical issues, rioting, security malfunctions, a hostage situation involving a guard, and more have created a sense of continuing crisis at the facility.
The administration’s consistent aversion to transparency has consistently made things worse. Even members of the civilian oversight board that Jones created and appointed — a key element of her reform promises — have resigned in protest to the secrecy surrounding various incidents at the jail.
An especially egregious example of the jail’s intersection of mismanagement and secrecy arose in January. A defense attorney documented his jailed client’s untreated medical condition with a cellphone photo that was published in the Post-Dispatch and elsewhere. Instead of addressing the issue of medical neglect, the administration cracked down on lawyers’ cellphones in the jail — while claiming, improbably, that it wasn’t in reaction to the media exposure.
Though those and other decisions to keep secret from (or even mislead) the public about jail issues have come from Clemons-Abdullah’s office, she serves at the pleasure of the mayor. Yet, as we wrote back in January, the mayor’s reaction when these controversies arise has been to act as if it has nothing to do with her.
In fact, it does. Transparency (or the lack of it) starts at the top.
Critics on the Board of Aldermen and elsewhere have previously called for Clemons-Abdullah’s ouster over both the jail incidents and the lack of transparency around them. Which makes the lack of information regarding her current status all the more unacceptable.
As the Post-Dispatch’s Austin Huguelet reports, Clemons-Abdullah has been on leave since late last week, though city officials didn’t confirm her absence until Wednesday.
And that’s about all they’ve confirmed. The mayor’s office, vaguely citing personnel privacy rules, has refused to answer virtually any fundamental questions about the issue.
Among the unanswered ones:
Was Clemons-Abdullah placed on leave involuntarily, or did she take it upon herself?
Is this a medical or personal issue, or has there been some new incident involving management at the jail that the public doesn’t yet know about?
Is she being paid while on leave?
Will she be back? If so, when?
There is no question this obstinate official silence violates the spirit of Missouri’s Sunshine Law; whether it violates the letter of that law is less clear. That would likely depend on whether Clemons-Abdullah’s leave is related to personal or professional issues. And the mayor’s office won’t even divulge that much.
Unfortunately, that’s not surprising. We have pointed out, multiple times before, this administration’s distressing instinct toward secrecy regarding public issues.
Whether it’s hiding the purpose of city grants handed out to politically connected businesses, or stonewalling on details of police cruisers destroying private property, or the destruction of city records that have been demanded in litigation, the current city leadership appears to think the public isn’t entitled to any public information that might prove politically embarrassing.
That in itself should be politically embarrassing. But given recent history, we’re not expecting this mayor to have an unprompted epiphany about the importance of government transparency. Only if and when St. ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëùµ¼º½Íøַ’ residents begin demanding such transparency will it happen.