State Rep. Rasheen Aldridge, however, was doubtful of Edwards’ claim, saying in a statement that “there are never protests without demands.”
Blake Strode, executive director of the legal advocacy group ArchCity Defenders, said his organization has heard time and again from inmates concerned about exposure to COVID-19, lack of testing for the coronavirus and little effort made to separate infected inmates from others.
On January 12 it was reported that the City Justice Center had a “surge” in coronavirus cases. The rise in cases happened in mid-December, officials said. As of Tuesday, there were 30 active cases among inmates at both the Justice Center and the St. Louis Medium Security Institution, Corrections Commissioner Dale Glass said.
— Taylor Harris (@ladytiamoyo) February 6, 2021
Keeping detainees isolated has proven easier at the Medium Security Institution, also known as the workhouse, where each inmate in the near-empty facility can have their own cell, Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards said Tuesday during a Health and Human Services Committee meeting. “I might add that we’ve had no one be hospitalized as a result of COVID-19 over the entire period,” Edwards told the committee. “Most folks tested positive as a result of us doing testing of the facility, and most were asymptomatic. We’ve had five people with low-grade fevers that we’ve monitored very closely.”
Edwards said that over the course of the pandemic, about 85 inmates at the two jails have been either exposed to or infected by the coronavirus.
Aldermanic President Lewis Reed’s office said CJC detainees had expressed fears about being infected with COVID-19, but other city officials at the time denied there were any reported coronavirus cases among the general population of inmates.
Inez Bordeaux, an activist with Arch City Defenders and organizer of the Close The Workhouse campaign, said during the committee meeting that several inmates described to her “hellish, unconstitutional, inhumane conditions.”