Androscoggin jail count at record high

AUBURN – The number of inmates held at the Androscoggin County Jail has reached an all-time high. The population has grown to 165 inmates, while the jail’s intended capacity is 118.

Jail Administrator John Lebel on Friday released four inmates before their sentences were up and sent six people to a jail two hours away that had extra beds.

“I wanted to board even more,” Lebel said. “But those six beds were all I could find.”

Lebel plans to install more bunks at the jail and to begin boarding some prisoners elsewhere.

He had been asking police to arrest no more people than necessary. Lebel has suggested that police might summon nonviolent people rather than arrest them, but said he will no longer do that.

“Why am I telling those officers to look the other way?” he said. “I can’t ask them that anymore. I won’t do it.”

Lebel plans to ask the county for more than $150,000 in immediate funding and more than $1 million in budget increases for the coming year.