St. Louis MO Mayor Tishaura Jones’ budget proposal would close a city jail, divert $4M from police to social programs and cut nearly 100 police jobs. This from foxnews.com.
Tishaura Jones, St. Louis’ first black female mayor, campaigned on progressive criminal justice reform
Whatever the old administration was doing clearly wasn’t working – but it remains to be seen if police cuts are the answer.
In 1990s New York City, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani did the opposite, hiring more police, stepping up enforcement and locking away more felons – dramatically cleaning up crime in the Big Apple.
Corrections Commissioner Dale Glass will be resigning from his position as of June 1.
Read our full statement below, or see the full text on the City's website: https://t.co/67Hw5CgDcf pic.twitter.com/jFnOlHMY2R
— Mayor Tishaura O. Jones (@saintlouismayor) May 12, 2021
St. Louis had 87 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2020, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the worst rate in the country.
It’s now at its highest rate in 50 years – even as the population has dwindled in that same time period.
Some city officials have blamed the spike in violence on the coronavirus pandemic – which would follow the national trend, except St. Louis also led the country before COVID-19 in homicides per 100,000 in 2019 with 65.
For comparison, Baltimore saw the second-worst rate and also its highest on record in 2019 – with 57 per 100,000, according to the Baltimore Sun.
Interim City of St. Louis Director of Public Safety Daniel Isom explained the mayor’s plan this way:
“Funding a comprehensive approach to violent crime is the best approach to reducing murders. This requires both police and partnering agencies adequately funded to support victims and hold offenders accountable. It also requires target arrest and prosecutions to get murderers and shooters off the streets and not filling jails with nonviolent offenders.”
I’m not a city manager or involved in public safety by any stretch of the imagination and I can clearly smell that Isom is talking nonsensical bullshit. “Comprehensive approach?” Specifically, what will the diverted $4M go toward and who will be held accountable for the spending and the ensuring results. And how frequently will you report the results and spending gates?
Exactly. This is a damn scam designed to steal from the city tax payers. Nothing will ever be done and nothing will be accomplished by this “comprehensive approach.”
Under Civil Service Rule XIX, police officers were held to different disciplinary standards than other civil service workers.
Tonight, the Civil Service Commission voted to eliminate that rule, now holding all employees equally accountable. We were long overdue for this change.
— Mayor Tishaura O. Jones (@saintlouismayor) May 5, 2021
And Jones told the UK newspaper The Telegraph Tuesday that “more police doesn’t prevent crime.”
“We still have two separate police unions – one for Black police officers and one for White officers,” she told the outlet. “If they can’t trust each other, then how can they expect the public to trust them?”
The mayor’s proposal to slash funds from St. Louis police would redirect the money to social programs, an idea that she repeatedly embraced on the campaign trail. She has said that as many as half of city police calls can be handled by someone other than a law enforcement officer.
A proposed city budget for next year, which Jones announced in April, would cut $4 million from the police department and reallocate the funds to an affordable housing fund, victim support services, the city’s Department of Health and Human Services and Civil Rights Enforcement Agency, which investigates housing, equal employment and public accommodation complaints.
It also calls for the city to eliminate nearly 100 vacant police positions. No current officers would be laid off.
Thank you to @stlcomptroller for your support to begin investing in the root causes of crime. This $4mil allocation will help us start being proactive and put the public back in public safety.
For a full text readout of our release, visit https://t.co/m5U3EOZmeF pic.twitter.com/hAtKjaORQU
— Mayor Tishaura O. Jones (@saintlouismayor) April 29, 2021
The budget proposal also contains zero funding for the city’s medium-security jail, known as “The Workhouse.”
“We don’t need two jails,” she told reporters after visiting both of the city’s lockups with Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., in April. “We need to move people through the system, we need to find alternatives to jails for some of the offenses.”
“…don’t need two jails”? Prove it. Show the numbers, statistics, spending details to the people. Then let them discuss this.
There’s nothing like a progressive democrat seeking legitimization of a pet project by naming one of the Sharia Gang of Four as verification of sound rationale. If nothing else, the name Rep. Cori Bush brings suspicion to any initiative. She and her cohorts openly hate America and are an active part in seeking to bring America to its knees.
My guess is Mayor Jones is on the take from Soros et al Big Money to do anything she can to further destroy her city. Cutting police funding in a city with a bench mark per capita murder rate is beyond insane. It’s suicidal. And this is one mayor that must be recalled as quickly as possible.
