St. Louis City Justice Center from the corner of Tucker Boulevard and Clark Avenue. KEN SHIMIZU/POST-DISPATCH

Teddy Roosevelt didn’t hide his contempt for gadflies and after-the-fact fault finders.

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better,” he said after his presidency in a speech about citizenship. “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”

The American Civil Liberties Union in St. Louis hardly has been an idle spectator during its nearly 90 years on the scene, especially in matters of alleged police brutality and abuse of prisoners. But the organization’s involvement with St. Louis’ city corrections department provides a promising example of how critics can step into the arena with a more collaborative approach to help bring about needed reforms at public agencies and still maintain independence.

This spring, the ACLU of Eastern Missouri published a scathing report alleging that the St. Louis corrections employees had engaged in “endemic abuse of inmates and a pattern of policy violations.”

The complaints were drawn mainly from publicly unidentified informants. The complaints ranged from inmate assault and sexual harassment to medical neglect and overcrowding.

The St. Louis chapter has experience with unlawful conditions in state prisons and local jails. It participated in a major investigation into medical care in Missouri prisons and was involved in a successful federal suit against county jailers who unlawfully conducted strip searches of people arrested on minor charges.

The city jails have had a troubled history. Last summer, three corrections officers were arrested for drug trafficking.

The ACLU’s investigation was incomplete, which it admitted in the report. It didn’t take into account that the facilities already are subject to outside checks in their operations — including annual inspections from the U.S. Marshals Service and quarterly reviews by the city health department.

The report was met with criticism, but corrections officials appeared to agree with the ACLU about how inmates should be treated. We noted at the time that this represented a solid foundation for both sides to “move beyond the recriminations and work toward actual improvements.”

Now comes a “working group,” created at the urging of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen’s Public Safety Committee. It is made up of city officials, representatives of the ACLU and others. Its purpose is to review corrections policies and practices on how to improve conditions in city jails.

The group has been meeting once a month. It has sought advice from outside experts in hopes that St. Louis will “be the beneficiary of the best ideas from around the country,” the ACLU’s John Chasnoff said.

The process has resulted in a new inmate complaint system; the ACLU says it’s “a step in the right direction.”

The ACLU hopes to see a civilian review board empowered to examine inmate complaints. St. Louis Public Safety Director Charles Bryson says discussions are in an early phase, but the corrections department is looking at “many processes,” and, as a matter of general principle, doesn’t “mind having extra eyes and ears to come and see us.”

If this productive talk leads to action, the constructive critic and the target itself both will be due some serious credit.