From MORE:
For the last seven months, I’ve been part of a team of people providing jail support to Ferguson protesters. While doing jail support, we spent many hours talking on the phone with people (protesters and not) who were locked up in the City's Medium Security Institution (aka "the Workhouse"). From those conversations, it was clear that conditions inside the Workhouse are inhumane; people are forced to endure dirty, cramped quarters, disgusting food, and physical and psychological abuse. Often, they are not given the medications they need to survive.
Additionally, most people in the Workhouse are awaiting trial and have not even been found guilty yet. Many are locked up for non-violent crimes simply because they do not have the money for bail--sometimes as little as a few hundred dollars. It is clear that the Workhouse exists to criminalize, punish, and warehouse poor people.
So, this Tuesday, March 24th at 9:15am at the City Justice Center (200 South Tucker Blvd) we will call on Richard Gray, the City's Public Safety Director, to shut down the Workhouse. Folks who have been locked up will speak out about the facility while, inside the Justice Center, city officials meet with private vendors hoping to win a new food service contract with the City’s Division of Corrections. We will make sure they know that we will not tolerate inhumane jail conditions and mass incarceration in St. Louis.
