For years, clients & community members have reported hellish conditions at the Workhouse—flooding, extreme temperatures, sewage, rodent infestation, & violence. Yesterday, the court declared that in addition to our 6 clients—we believe thousands of others were similarly harmed. This means that the City could owe millions of dollars to compensate thousands of people for the harms and atrocities they experienced while detained inside of the Workhouse.

Yesterday, after seven years of litigating the debtors' prison case against #Ferguson, six Plaintiffs joined us & co-counsel from @whitecase and @CivRightsCorps to argue a Motion for Class Certification in Federal District Court. Our team is optimistic that yesterday’s hearing... ...was yet another important step toward long-overdue relief for more than 10,000 people detained by Ferguson for a total of 58 years of unlawful incarceration.

To learn more: archcitydefenders.org/for-immediate-…

As more families continue to grieve the loss of their loved ones who have been killed by police (most notably the tragic killing of five members of the Simmons family from a St. Louis police chase)-- impacted families with the FSV Response Program are preparing to talk… …about their months-long policy advocacy efforts and publicly announce their demands of the City and County officials.

Tomorrow, join us for a press conference and rally led by families of those who have lost loved ones to police killings and deaths in jails…

#thread #STLJailsCrisis
Last night, the world once again beheld people whose basic rights have been violated, who have been caged by a system that criminalizes race & poverty, & who have been torn from their families because they could not afford a money bond/no bond was allowed. Following protests in January and February, people last night held a banner from inside #STLCity’s “City Justice Center” that read, “HELP US,” and were heard saying they wanted court dates. While previous protests highlighted the jail’s lack of COVID safety protocols, lack of...

A brief #STLJailsCrisis timeline:
November 2017: James Cody & other people detained in the Workhouse pretrial file a federal lawsuit against #STLCity alleging inhumane conditions at the Workhouse. Still pending.
April 2018: @CLOSEWorkhouse campaign starts to #closetheWorkhouse September 2018 & January 2019: @CLOSEWorkhouse publishes two reports on the history of the Workhouse, problems with money bail, pretrial detention & the need for #STL to reimagine public safety. archcitydefenders.org/our-impact/clo…

Some context for the uprising in the "City Justice Center" (CJC) in #STLCity. 1/6 2/6

#Thread
For years, @STLCityGov has displaced, punished, arrested, brutalized, prosecuted, jailed, and traumatized countless people who are unhoused and then had the gall to suggest it's "public safety."

Over +10 years, we've represented clients who were homeless and couldn't... get into housing often because they were targeted and punished for being poor and unhoused. They'd been cussed out, beaten unconscious, arrested and threatened with being caged in the Workhouse, and generally abused by SLMPD, the courts, & the notoriously hellish Workhouse jail.