Historical September 1993 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
I decided to visit Dee Joyce-Hayes at her office in the Municipal Courts Building to see how she views her position and to see if there were surprises for St. Louis’s first elected woman circuit attorney. Joyce-Hayes indicated that the job so far has been very challenging and invigorating.
However, it is fuller of administrative detail than she had anticipated.
She said that, “It taught me more than ever that I must learn to delegate better.” The number of decisions and the level of seriousness they entail varies a great deal.
There are small decisions they feel she must make.
She has also had to learn to control time and say “I can’t see now.” Learning to prioritize has been a real challenge.
In addition, because of budgetary and staffing reasons, lots of things can’t be done overnight. So, she has had to move slowly.
If there is to be a genuine reallocation of resources, there need to be more resources. “You can’t reallocate now without taking away from things that really need to be done.” Joyce-Hayes has created a special unit for sex crimes and abuse cases. Previously, these cases were scattered throughout the office. Members of the new unit are getting special training.
They are setting up support for interface between family services and the sex crimes unit at the police department. Ultimately, Joyce-Hayes wants to do more with family violence, an area that she feels strongly about.
It has received short shrift from the criminal justice system and the community. At the end of her first term; she hopes to have that accomplished. Joyce-Hayes said that she is working more extensively to create diversion programs for nonviolent drug offenders. Often these are youngsters, first offenders.
Her emphasis is on treatment, job skills, and family counseling in lieu of incarceration. Joyce-Hayes had some critical words for the media. “The media to some extent does the public a disservice, at least not overlaying a perspective.
They speak of a horrific homicide rate but the public should keep in mind that most homicides still occur to a very, very high degree among persons known to each other.
The likelihood of being gunned down by a stranger remains very small.
There is a public perception that it is unsafe to walk the streets of the city, according to the circuit attorney. Yet, for people coming downtown, downtown is very safe. Joyce-Hayes spoke in favor of more rigid gun control.
It should be more difficult to get a gun.
A lot of people are killed with their own guns, or guns stolen in burglaries.
She noted that if there were stricter gun control, over a longer period of time there will be fewer guns on the street. But, “Americans like instant results; this will take awhile.
We need to do it for our children and grandchildren, not ourselves.” She further informed me that semiautomatic and automatic weapons are becoming a bigger problem in St. Louis.
The circuit attorney stated that drug possession and drug sales are the most frequently prosecuted crimes.
In fact, they take up 1/3 to 1/2 of the docket. Joyce-Hayes found the budgetary process to be a real eye-opener. Nonetheless, she feels she had the ‘best preparation one could hope for. Being here for 12 years and also in quasiadministration as first assistant.” However, her predecessor had not been a delegater; hence she hadn’t previously had budgetary experience.
There are 41 attorneys in the Circuit Attorney’s office. Supervising this office leaves her very little free time. Joyce-Hayes came to St. Louis in early 1972 and has lived most of that time in Skinker DeBaliviere.
She feels that the neighborhood has changed so much.
In 1972, she lived on the 6000 block of Westminster. Everybody knew everybody and what was going on.
As the neighborhood has become more and more stable, with people moving in and out, Joyce-Hayes feels some of that tightknit atmosphere has been lost. But, it was tightknit because people were circling the wagons against further deterioration.
There isn’t that need today.
Original photograph caption
Dee Joyce-Hayes. Photographer not credited.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, September 1993.
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Original source: SD_Times1993_09.pdf, printed page(s) 1; PDF page(s) 1.
