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What does justice look like?
November 25, 2014
St. Louis City Treasurer Tishaura Jones

On November 24, 2014, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch announced that the grand jury voted not to indict Ferguson Police Office Darren Wilson in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. While the decision was surprising to some, to me, it was not.

While people close to the investigation told me that there wasn’t enough evidence to indict, I prayed for a glimmer of hope, that maybe the grand jury would see that there was probable cause (which is a low burden of proof) to indict. But, as we all know, police officers are held to a different standard when being investigated for cases that involve excessive force. According to Missouri Law section 563, officers are allowed to use deadly force “in effecting arrest or in preventing an escape from custody.” Simply put, it’s nearly impossible to indict a police officer, and there was never a chance in hell that Officer Wilson would have faced any criminal charges.

All along, I have reiterated the justice was not simply the indictment of Darren Wilson. Justice is more than that. Even if he were indicted, our community would have been subject to several additional months of trial proceedings, further pouring salt on our already open wound of racism and discrimination, wounds that never healed properly in the first place. Either way, the quest for justice does not end here.

So what does justice look like? Justice is dismantling and changing the systems that brought us to this moment. Justice is taking a serious look at the dysfunctional municipal court system that is funded on the backs of the poor, as revealed by the recent reports published by Arch City Defenders and Better Together. Justice is putting some teeth in the existing racial profiling law to hold police departments accountable for their years of dismal performance as revealed in the Missouri Attorney General’s annual report. Many municipal courts are the face of a government that many citizens no longer have faith in. State laws capping the amount of revenue municipal courts can bring into cities at 30 percent have been ignored. Justice is decreasing this to 10 percent and closing municipal courts that fail to respect citizens’ constitutional rights. Justice is wiping the slate clean for those who are victims of our municipal court system by forgiving the existing warrants and cases for misdemeanors that either causes people to lose their jobs or prevents them from seeking future employment.

Outside of municipal courts, we must also seek to improve the relationship between the police and all citizens. Justice is creating Civilian Review Boards that have power to hold police departments accountable to the citizens that they serve and protect. Justice is the possibility of bad officers losing their police certification for bad behavior instead of allowing them tojump from one department to the next. Justice is setting minimum standards for the existence of a municipality.

But justice should also be sought outside of the criminal justice system in our region. Justice is paying workers a living wage so they can take care of themselves and their families. Justice is safe and affordable housing. Justice is combining all 22 school districts into a single regional district so all children are given the same opportunity to succeed regardless of where they live. Justice is a new Metrolink line that connects residents in North and South Counties to the urban core. Justice is driving economic development to blighted areas north of Delmar. Justice is creating opportunities for families to build assets to save for the future of their children and emergencies instead of turning to predatory loan practices.

These suggestions merely scratch the surface. They are the low hanging fruit that we can address today to change our region for the better. They are the things that we must tackle today in order to keep history from repeating itself. These are the conditions that led to the unrest we have experienced since the tragic death of Michael Brown. Are we ready to change them?

Tishaura O. Jones is Treasurer of the City of St. Louis, formerAssistant Minority Floor Leader in the Missouri House of Representatives, and a founding member of Young Citizens Council of St. Louis.

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