This article first appeared in the Solutions newsletter. Click here to learn more and sign up.
Treat a man like an animal and he’ll act like one. That’s a core premise of Doug Burris, the city’s interim commissioner of corrections. Burris also believes the inverse—that respect breeds respect—and that’s why he invites me into his office at the City Justice Center at midday on May 6. He’s minutes away from proposing to detainees that they help create an “honor dorm,” a pod inside the jail where good behavior brings extra privileges. “It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out,” says Burris, clutching a legal pad and a typed-out speech.
Stay informed on the area’s civic issues
Subscribe to the St. Louis Solutions newsletter to learn about public problems and possible fixes.
By his count, about half the jail’s residents are facing charges of “assaultive” crimes or murder. Roughly a quarter have been prescribed a serious psychiatric medication. Multiple disturbances—some involving fires and busted windows—have erupted there over the last several years, and members of an appointed oversight board have complained of a lack of transparency.
When the previous director, Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah, went on leave last year, Burris was a retiree, having run the St. Louis County jail and the federal probation office downtown. But he agreed to conduct a review of the CJC for the city. In January, he issued a report finding a “dire” need for more correctional officers; the ones who did work there were regularly “overwhelmed,” and some lacked professionalism, Burris wrote. As for the detainees, they complained about being confined too long inside their cells and having nothing to do with their time.
That same month, Burris accepted an offer to run the city jail on a provisional basis and made several changes. He brought in job training, therapy for veterans, and a limited number of library books. He began writing letters of support for upstanding detainees to present to judges. He also leveraged a recent state law to drop the cost of phone calls from 23 cents to 7 cents per minute. When he announced that particular change to male detainees, he recalls, some danced, cheered, and chanted, “You deserve a raise!” (In the female pod, a detainee showed her gratitude Mardi-Gras style by lifting her top.) Now Burris wants an honor dorm. One goal of the project is to make the CJC safer and more functional by making it more livable for residents and employees alike. But for Burris, it’s also a matter of respect.
“We’re going to the fifth floor,” he tells me, and I follow, as do various other admins.
In the pod known as 5D, several dozen men in orange and white uniforms bunch up in the center of the room. Some stand up on a mezzanine but most are down on the main level, near or seated at circular tables.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Burris says. Reading aloud from his sheet, he lays out the honor-dorm concept. He asks them to break into committees in the coming weeks and appoint four representatives to negotiate with administrators and nail down which privileges and activities the dorm will offer. Burris tells them his goal: to “prove that you are worthy of second chances and that you should be treated like men.” This stirs some chatter; one man up in the mezzanine says, “Appreciate ya.”
Burris also clarifies: There will be no smoking. No tampering with locks. No violence. “Respect is key,” he says, adding that the main reason his fellow jail administrators were on board was that they believed it could succeed—so much so that they hoped it would lead to a waiting list. “We believe in you,” Burris said.
A resident in the mezzanine stares down at him. “All y’all believe in us,” he says blankly.
“That’s why I write those letters,” Burris replies.
Unit manager Netsanet Newete yells up to the man: “Don’t you believe in yourself?”
“You know I do,” he says, smirking and looking away.
One resident on the main level asks with a skeptical grin: “So will this be an honor dorm for C.O.s as well?”
Burris, earnest as always, says: “It will be a mutual-respect dorm.”
Burris’ honor-dorm experiment is not unique. The state of Missouri is running one inside a prison in Jefferson City. Northern European countries operate famously progressive correctional systems, and some of their features are being tried out in Washington and Pennsylvania. The initiative in the latter state, nicknamed “Little Scandinavia,” has reportedly resulted in a much lower rate of violence than in the general population and so is being expanded to three more facilities. As far as Burris knows, the CJC has never tried this in a formal way.
On May 20, he walks back into 5D to gather the residents’ proposals. The room smells of microwaved popcorn. As the pod’s representatives sit at the picnic tables, a resident up in the mezzanine stands inside his locked cell, shouting through the window to get Burris’ attention. One of the reps loses his patience and erupts at him to shut up—“You know what time it is, n—a!”—which elicits a chorus of Hey hey hey’s as everyone else tries to calm the rep down. He collects himself.
The reps hand Burris a sheet of notebook paper with a handwritten list of requests: More rec time, longer TV hours, dominos and chess boards, a washer and dryer, barber equipment. Burris says he’ll look into it. He has already started the process to get more tablet devices, on which detainees are able to communicate with family and play games. “That’s one of the first things I want to do,” he explains, “because I’ve heard half the fights happen over the tablets.” The men add that they need more cleaning supplies and soap.
Burris reminds them of the need to show respect to one another. “That’s the number one thing,” he says, putting his hand on the shoulder of the rep who’d lost his cool. “So let’s not yell like that again, all right?” The rep nods.
After we leave 5D, I ask Burris and Tammy Ross, the deputy commissioner, how they think things are going. It won’t be a linear process, Burris says. Ross agrees. “We may have to go through several groups of people,” she says, “but we’ll get it together.”
Burris seems pleasantly surprised that their requests were do-able. “One time,” he says, “we were going around to the women’s area, saying ‘How are you doing? What do you need?’ And one woman said, ‘Man, we really need conjugal visits up here.’”
“She did!” laughed Ross. “Was that the one that flashed you?”
“No, that was a different one,” Burris says.
By late June, the honor dorm is in full swing, Burris says. The men in 5D are getting more rec time, longer TV hours, a consistent C.O. whom the residents consider “respectful,” a second microwave. Some things, such as basketball equipment, must wait until the new fiscal year, which begins shortly. Other provisions, such as certain cleaning supplies, can be a liability. Burris says that certain residents have plucked out broom straws, dipped them in cleaning agents, microwaved them until they caught fire, then smoked them in their cells. So managers are careful in provisioning those supplies. In addition, Burris says, there’s been some bullying of rule-breakers to prevent privileges from being taken away.
But by and large, he says, things are going well in the honor dorm. As he’d hoped, other residents are vying to transfer there. The pod 4D, he says, is now trying to hold down the number of incidents so that it can become the next one. This is a sign of the virtuous cycle he was hoping for.
Burris further aspires to eventually install a free-standing library inside the honor dorm—provided that the logistics are secure and the material appropriate. On June 30, he invites Sarah Buchanan, the leader of the nonprofit Libraries for Liberation, into the CJC laundry room to hear from a half dozen honor-dorm residents working there about what kinds of items they’d want. Several mention career and self-help books. One older detainee, who says he’d appreciate books on the basics of reading, adds: “Books on fatherhood, books on how to be a son, how to be a brother. That’s a big part of it too. We have re-learn how to be men.”
Up in the lobby, Burris tells me that that resident’s comments illustrate a slight shift he has noticed among the jail population. “When we first started,” he says, “people were just trying to get by. And now you can see they’re talking about, How can I prepare for when I get out?” That’s ideal, says Burris: “We don’t want them to come back.”
Hear more from Phillips about honor dorms on The 314 Podcast.
