ST. LOUIS — Corrections Commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah, who oversaw years of controversy at the city’s downtown jail, is now out of a job, the mayor’s office said Saturday.
Conner Kerrigan, a spokesperson for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, said the separation was effective immediately. He did not say whether Clemons-Abdullah had resigned or been fired.
He said Tammy Ross, the deputy commissioner, will take over the top job in an acting role until a permanent replacement is named. He didn’t say what prompted the move.
However, the decision followed three years of nearly constant turmoil at the City Justice Center, which sits across South Tucker Boulevard from City Hall. Since 2021, the downtown lockup has been buffeted by hostage-taking, more than a dozen detainee deaths and repeated clashes with independent watchdogs.
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Inmates and their family members have complained about squalid conditions and inadequate health care services. Lawyers say they’ve struggled to get access to their clients.
Those problems have been an unwelcome contrast to Jones’ pledges to improve the city’s jail system.
Jones was elected on promises to clean up the Corrections Division after years of complaints of inhumane conditions and treatment of detainees at the City Workhouse, on the north riverfront, as well as disturbing riots at the downtown jail with broken locks.
She followed through on closing the workhouse, oversaw expensive security fixes downtown and created a new oversight board to hear complaints of misconduct and make recommendations on how to improve things.
After numerous complaints, the administration also hired a new health care provider for the downtown jail, and created new positions in the city health department to oversee care.
But the list of things that went wrong overshadowed progress in the eyes of activists who want to greatly reduce or eliminate incarceration, some of whom were vocal supporters of the mayor during her campaign. Last month, dozens crowded City Hall to accuse the administration of breaking its promises.
It didn’t help that Jones and Clemons-Abdullah repeatedly clashed with the oversight board over access to the jail amid concerns about detainee deaths and complaints of slow medical responses, undermining claims of transparency.
Jones defended Clemons-Abdullah for a time. When activists and Alderman Rasheen Aldridge, of downtown, called for Clemons-Abdullah’s ouster last year, Jones rebuffed them, saying the commissioner had her “full confidence.â€
Clemons-Abdullah defended herself at an aldermanic budget hearing earlier this year. She said a shortage of correctional officers — more than half of budgeted positions were vacant earlier this year — had taxed operations.
And she said fixing it was difficult, especially with the barrage of bad headlines. “Nobody grows up and says, ‘I want to go to work in a jail,’†she said.
She also pushed back on criticism that placed blame for the deaths on her and her staff.
“It’s not as though the deaths were caused by negligence,†she said. “We’re in a city. We’re not like a country town. And when I say ‘in the city,’ you have an opportunity to get into a lot of things. When you get into the facility, a lot of times people are addicted to drugs.â€
Then, in September, Clemons-Abdullah went on unexplained leave. A for-sale sign appeared outside a house she owned in Forest Park Southeast. Critics speculated that she might finally be on her way out.
Clemons-Abdullah appeared to dash some hopes when she returned to work on Dec. 9. Then came Saturday’s announcement of her departure from city government.
Aldridge, the alderman who first called for her ouster, applauded the news Saturday, and said change must follow.
“New leadership must ensure that the jail is no longer a place that treats inmates inhumanely, especially those who have not been convicted of a crime,†he said.
The Rev. Darryl Gray, chairman of the jail oversight board, said he wasn’t surprised by Clemons-Abdullah’s departure, which he referred to as a termination. Clemons-Abdullah, he said, had become a liability for a mayor up for re-election in April.
Gray said he supported her departure but dismissed the news as a sign of change.
“The problems at the jail are not going to go away until there is proper oversight at the jail,†he said. “Removing the commissioner is not going to change that.â€
Clemons-Abdullah, who could not be reached for comment Saturday, had 30 years of experience in corrections operations when she was hired by Jones’ administration in August 2021.
She had worked at nine facilities across the country, most recently as an associate warden at a federal prison in Arkansas.
The downtown jail was already under scrutiny when she arrived. There had been repeated inmate disturbances in the nine months or so before her tenure, including some under the previous administration of then-Mayor Lyda Krewson.
Mark Schlinkmann and Ethan Colbert of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report
