St. Louis County's First Black Prosecutor Wesley Bell Talks Justice | St Louis Hustle Podcast Rewind
Channel: St. Louis Hustle Podcast
Date: 2022-08-02

Wesley Bell is the Prosecuting Attorney for St. Louis County, Missouri. Elected in 2018, he is the first African American to hold this office, the chief law enforcement official for Missouri's most populous county with nearly a million constituents. 

Bell has a policy of aggressively charging and prosecuting violent crimes involving victims. For other, low-level, non-violent crimes, however, he introduced a Diversion Program that identifies defendants with substance abuse and mental health challenges who would benefit from treatment rather than punishment. The failure rate of this Diversion Program as of January 2022 is an astonishingly low 8.4%. More than 90% of the almost 1,500 defendants who have gone through this Diversion Program have stayed out of trouble and are productive citizens of St. Louis County rather than inmates in a Missouri prison. 

His office also plays a leading role in a multi-agency Jail Population Review Team that identifies defendants in pre-trial detention that can be released without endangering public safety. All of these efforts are based on data-driven decisions; Bell hired the office's first data analyst.

Bell introduced the office's first Conviction and Incident Review Unit that investigates and prosecutes police officers and other public officials who commit crimes. This unit also reviews past convictions brought by the office to ensure all past convictions have integrity.

Bell also expanded the office's community outreach efforts dramatically. Among many programs and initiatives, perhaps the most successful has been Community Case Review, where community members come into the office to learn about some aspect of criminal prosecution from the prosecutors, investigators and victim advocates who work these cases.

Bell ran a vigorous grassroots campaign in 2018 to unseat a 28-year incumbent by a 14-point margin. Previously he represented hundreds of disenfranchised clients as a Special Public Defender in St. Louis County. He also has led his own criminal defense practice and served as a criminal justice professor and municipal court judge. As a Ferguson City Councilman from April 2015 to December 2018, he helped to negotiate and implement the City of Ferguson's consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Bell earned his Juris Doctorate from the University of Missouri School of Law and Bachelor of Arts from Lindenwood University with the help of student loans and scholarships. He was raised in North St. Louis County and attended Hazelwood Public Schools. His Police Officer father and St. Louis County civil servant mother instilled in him a deep appreciation for law enforcement and public service.