Hear more from Nixon on The 314 Podcast.
Former Missouri Gov. Jeremiah “Jay” Nixon knows what things were like when the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department was under state control. As governor, he got to appoint the board that ran the department, back before a voter-approved switch brought police under the city’s auspices instead.
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“Crime issues are much more deep in a community than merely [whether it’s] a board that hires a chief,” he says, suggesting the effort now underway to bring the department back under the governor’s auspices could have little impact.
He takes a longer view. “ Part of my deal now is to not look at things what’s happening today and tomorrow, but to try to look farther out,” he tells SLM. “ In St. Louis, obviously you’ve got to deal with the crime issue. My sense is the long-term view is to deal with younger folks. And one easy way to begin that process is a full understanding of the juvenile court system.”
It’s the state of Missouri that runs the court system, including the juvenile courts. And, as he observes, “ Most of the folks that are getting in felonious problems have graduated from our juvenile court system. … And if you have a customer, a kid with trouble, come into your system and then when they graduate, they become a felon, that’s not really a success.”
The former governor said he’d like to see the state convene a commission of the smartest people working on juvenile crime and recidivism issues come together to discuss ways to improve the system, with an eye toward getting kids on the right path before it’s too late. He doesn’t buy the idea that falling crime rates in the city mean all is well.
“ I mean, St. Louis is saying, ‘We got down to only 150 murders last year.’ What? The county only had 30 something,” he says. “I never talked about crime like that because it affects individual people and communities. And what you want to do is not solve the crime problem, but solve the safety problem. If people feel safe where they’re going, then you don’t have a crime problem.”
Nixon made his remarks in an interview for The 314 Podcast published today. In conversation, the state’s former attorney general and governor from 2009 to 2017 shared his thoughts on the challenges looming for new Gov. Mike Kehoe, why he’s not worried about the state entering “demographic winter,” and why he still has hope for the Missouri Democratic Party. (After long being considered a purple state, Missouri is now deep red, with the Democrats holding no statewide elected offices.)
In the interview, Nixon also shared his thoughts on the St. Louis Board of Aldermen being unable to agree on a proposal to spend the city’s portion of Rams settlement funds, likely tabling any plan to allocate the money until after this April’s elections.
Nixon helped lay the groundwork for the settlement with the NFL during his tenure as governor, and the firm where he later went to work, Dowd Bennett, helped win the settlement, though Nixon did not work on the case and walled himself off from any compensation for it.
He said he doesn’t share the view of some observers that a failure to pass a bill is, in fact, a failure. ”You’re seeing democracy in real time,” he said. “You’re seeing the fights that happen behind closed doors happen in public, that’s all. I don’t think people should get overly concerned or overly worried about it.”
He added, “ The money’s still there. It’s gathering interest right now. I’ve seen failures. Failure is when the money is spent wrong and the money is gone. Neither of those things have happened here.”
