ST. LOUIS — St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush and other city leaders spent hours first touring the City Justice Center downtown and then the medium security jail in north city.
"We were disappointed, shocked and frustrated by what we saw," Jones said.
"We wanted to have access to see what's actually happening so that we can actually make change," said Bush, the congresswoman of Missouri's 1st District, which encompasses St. Louis City and much of north St. Louis County.
Family members of inmates and activists have raised concerns about conditions inside the jails.
"We talked to detainees in both facilities," Jones said.
Most recently, there were two riots at the City Justice Center, one in February and another in early April.
City and federal leaders say conditions at the 55-year-old medium security jail are the worst of the two.
During their tour, they say they saw mold-infested sinks in the non-violent detainees' cells, feces on floors and roaches running rampant.
They shared pictures with 5 On Your Side.
"The utter filth. The trash. The bugs. There are people at the Workhouse saying that the food is coming in so cold when we get it every single day that we don't even know what it is," Rep. Bush said.
Currently, there are more than 300 detainees at the medium security jail in the 7600 block of Hall Street.
"This is someone's father, someone's mother, brother housed here. At the end of the day, people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect," Jones said.
Jones' predecessor, Mayor Lyda Krewson, spent at least $5 million to upgrade the facility, including the HVAC system, bathrooms as well as creating single cells instead of double bunks.
"I am angry because for three years we have told the city that behind these walls, injustice is a regular occurrence," said Kayla Reed, the Executive Director of Action St. Louis.
Jones says the detainees have been living in what she calls "deplorable conditions" for decades, and she promises to clean it up.
Earlier this week, the mayor said she hopes changes begin this spring.
Meantime, she vows to close the Workhouse.
"I stand committed to the budget that we introduced to zero out the funding for the Workhouse," Jones said.
The mayor's budget proposed closing the medium security jail sometime next year.
Even after the millions of dollars the previous administration spent on upgrading the jail, Jones insists the Workhouse still is not worth saving.