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Thank you for joining us for Last Call.

These are the topics that we didn't get to the first time around, even though they're very important, including Alvin Reed.

I want to ask you about a report by the Marshall Project, which took a look at um jails in Cleveland, Ohio, I think Jackson, Mississippi, and St. Louis, Missouri, and pointed out, as has been mentioned by certain people on this program through the years that the incarcerated in the city jail can be there for four, or as Tom Sullivan, the government watchdog, says, five years without any sunlight and any fresh air.

They're not out.

They're not picking up litter.

They're not able to play basketball or run around a track, hang out in the yard like they seem to do in Clint Eastwood movies, right, in Alcatraz.

And the same is actually true, although the Marshall Project didn't mention this to my be my understanding that in St. Louis County, it's the same thing.

You can be basically, as one guy said, like in a basement for four years.

All right.

I I believe that this is the truth.

I just I don't know how many people is this actually happening to.

I don't want to sound heartless.

I don't want to sound cruel, but um you're in jail, okay?

and hopefully you get out or hope you can get bail or or or something.

I really don't want to sound as cruel as I do and maybe in the wake of the tornado I'm just saying that oh my gosh, you know, society it's terrible, you know, but at the same time, is this the priority that we must have at this time?

It should be.

Alvin, I've had this argument with you on this show many times.

These are for the most part people who have not been found guilty of a crime.

And that is part of what makes this so appalling.

It's appalling on its face, but that takes it and makes it so much worse.

This is cruel and unusual punishment and no due process.

Yeah.

What was kind of amazing was the writer like at the beginning of the piece, she she interviewed one of the people who had just been released and the first thing he said was, "I never want to go back in there."

And I thought he proved your point.

I understand what you're saying completely.

But if if it is if it is so awful, I just thought it was interesting that the first prisoner that she spoke with said, "I'm never going back in there.

I don't ever want to get in trouble again."

And if you But you don't want people in a dungeon.

I mean, it's just like you you visit the old state hospital on Arsenal and you can go down in the tunnel where they used to keep people and you can see where they were chained.

Okay.

and and you think, you know, this it was wrong then and and it's and it's wrong now.

And I know I know you're not.

Oh, God.

Because I felt like I was getting tuberculosis just reading the story.

That's how awful it was.

But it was kind of stunning timing that that was the first person who's quoted in the story.

But I do think like it, you know, being without sunlight, being without fresh air, it exacerbates mental health problems.

So this guy may say, "It intend never to commit another crime."

Statistically, the odds go way up of him committing another crime because he's just been held under terrible conditions.

That screws a person.

Not only that, but you lived in Arizona where people in jail, and again, they're accused of crimes.

We know through DNA evidence that often they're wrongly accused and convicted, but they're just accused.

And sometimes because the courts are clogged, they wait and wait and wait and wait.

Um, in Arizona, they pick up litter and they get paid for it.

I mean, that seems to make sense.

So you could they get the fresh air, they help society by cleaning up the roadways, and they get a little money for the canteen.

You could put them in the sheriff's new golf carts.

Yeah, there you go.

And I'm not saying I'm against things like that.

I'm saying, yeah, if you want to create some program where we we we put people on a bus and take them to a big open field somewhere, you know, and let them break rocks.

Yeah.

Just just play around.

I I think that these jails should be replaced because they don't have a track or a yard or basketball court.

Well, Charlie, you know, you don't want to make him like the uh Richmond Heights Rec Center or something.

I mean, you know, there is the conditions can be spartan and without without dungeon like we're nowhere close to the Richmond Heights Rec Center at Well Well, with Charlie's idea of tracks and Well, I think I think they should get some recreation.

I think especially while you're awaiting your day in court, and I think it's appalling.

I was not here in 2002 when the plans for this justice center were signed off upon, but I can't believe we did this.

This is our relatively new jail here.

Oh, if you if you could have seen the old city jail and in your position for as long as you've been here, do you want to rethink what you just said?

I can't believe what I'm seeing or that this was signed off on.

I think I do.

I've seen a lot here in every we had we had the workhouse that had space for exercise outside.

We we just demolished that and we had gumbo flats that had uh space outside.

That's true.

Oh, I remember you talking about Katrina.

I remember when we were hoping we could get refugees from New Orleans to come and live in gumbo flat.

We were fixing it up and all excited and then the refugees didn't want to come here.

They went to Nebraska.

They went to Nebraska.

Most of them went to Houston.

I Hey, uh we lost one of the greats this week when Alderman Freeman Bosley Senior, former member of the board of alderman Bill passed away.

Uh I can recall when I mean he he was a guy who made us all smile.

He was a very nice guy and he had some clever creative solutions to societal problems.

remember when he wanted a requirement in the city that every gas station provide a restroom that's accessible to everybody because as he said quoted in your paper when you got to go you got to go and that was like among the things that he advocated through the years fun ideas always with a smile.

Oh sure.

And he was uh most famous or infamous that got national publicity for his idea of caning people.

And you know, now now you think about it.

We're talking about these jails being dungeons and everything.

Uh Freeman Bosley Senior's idea was instead of the jails, if we just have some public canings, we're going to prevent a lot of crime.

And I remember writing columns in support of him and and then he got carried away and started saying like we could even do it for public drunkenness.

And I said, well, you know, anything that too far for anybody.

Yeah.

I mean, you you start losing public support when people think that could be me being can.

True.

But but he was like that.

He was putting stuff out there.

And he was a champion of the north side and he did not like when the city favored those that had over those that did not have.

And you know, his son became the first black mayor.

And he was just telling a story uh in our paper this week about when the his parents moved to where they were, that was predominantly white neighborhood.

and he watched it changed.

But Freeman said like the problem now is going to be, you know, there was nobody black that held office.

I'm going to hold office.

And then, you know, he created this like little political, you know, he's a patriarch of a political family.

So, he did care about the north side deeply.

He absolutely did.

And he was unapologetically last century.

I mean, he was old school and proud of it.

And they don't make them like that anymore.

And he truly was so passionate about the people that he served.

Even though he was, you know, he was a he was a kingmaker.

I mean, he really was.

He uh he he was fun to cover.

He was truly fun to cover.

Well, we're going to miss his raspy voice and his wit and uh our thoughts and prayers, condolences to the Bosley family.

That's all the time we have.

Too many topics, too little time.

So, we'll get to them next week.

Thank you so much for joining us.