When the state Department of Corrections opened its new Maine State Prison in Warren, planners estimated that it would meet the state’s needs for at least a decade.

Two years later the 916-bed prison is nearly full.

With 891 Maine State Prison beds filled, Warden Jeffrey Merrill at least has a little breathing room. But the same can’t be said of the department’s other facilities. All are filled beyond capacity.

“We keep thinking, ‘What would be the situation if we hadn’t had the new prison?”‘ said Associate Corrections Commissioner Denise Lord.

The 150-bed Bolduc prison farm in Warren has 213 inmates. The 492-bed Maine Correctional Center in Windham has 565 inmates. The 75-bed Charleston Correctional Center has 95 inmates. The 96-bed Downeast Correctional Center in Bucks Harbor has 149 inmates. The 100-bed Special Management Unit (or Supermax) in Warren has 117 inmates.

In addition, the 70-bed women’s facility at Windham has 108 inmates.

“That’s one of the saddest things,” Lord said. “The women are not a large part of our population, but they’re the fastest-growing part.”

All told, the prison system has about 1,800 beds available and is housing 2,000 inmates. With this year’s operating budget at $113 million, that works out to an annual cost of $56,613 per inmate, about the annual mortgage payment on a $1 million house.

Faced with those numbers and projected budgets of $126 million in 2004 and $132 million in 2005, Lord suggested that building more prisons “is probably not the solution. … We have to look at ways to reduce the overall corrections population and manage costs.”

The Legislature has taken a step in that direction by forming an independent study commission to investigate ways to hold down the number of prisoners entering the system. Composed of the various segments of the criminal justice system, the panel is required to report back to the Legislature by the end of December.

Though the commission is intended to address a major problem, Rep. George Bunker, D-Kossuth Township and House chairman of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, is doubtful that the Legislature has the wherewithal to make the tough choices.

“It’s very frustrating,” Bunker said. “As a committee, we have no choice but to spend the extra money needed to deal with overcrowding. We have the lowest inmate rate per capita in the country and the third-lowest crime rate in the country, and we’re still spending big money on prisons. It’s very big money in terms of the state.”

Bunker said that the majority of inmates have substance abuse problems that do not get addressed in prison. He said “diversion” programs featuring smaller residential facilities would better serve inmates. Because the housing would feature therapeutic programs, grants and Medicaid could help reduce the overall cost.

“We have a whole bunch of people who deserve to be in prison but would be better off in therapeutic centers,” he said. “Nobody wants to put money where it belongs, where the problem is. We’ve got to divert and we’ve got to provide treatment, but nobody wants to put the buck where the biggest bang is.”

The vast majority of inmates in the system are doing time for crimes committed in Maine. The state does have about two dozen prisoners serving sentences from other states, but actually has more Maine inmates serving out of state than out-of-state inmates incarcerated in Maine.

Lord, the associate commissioner, said those inmates were sent out of state because the other states may have better behavior management facilities or treatment units. She said inmates also are moved in cases where they can be closer to their families.

Lord said the current population boom took the system by surprise.

In the past year alone, the population numbers jumped by more than 300. She attributed the increase to drug-related crimes and the tendency by judges to sentence offenders to nine-month-and-one day sentences that automatically put them into the state system.

She said the state’s county jails are overcrowded, and district attorneys and judges are aware that longer sentences to the state prison help keep local costs down.

“The jails are full and they might have been given sentences under the belief that we had more beds,” Lord said.

Lord said about 80 percent of inmates have some type of substance abuse problem. While people are sentenced to prison for committing crimes, many also have mental heath problems. She said prosecutors assume the prison system is more able to address treatment than the county jails.

One in five inmates is taking some form of psychotropic medicine, she said.

With the prisons crowded, instances of inmate-on-inmate violence also are on the rise. Lord said the prohibition against cigarettes has made them a valuable item of contraband, and fights over cigarettes have become more common.

Lord also noted that the new state prison in Warren also had an impact on the inmates who were housed in the old prison. Most of those 450 prisoners were serving long-term sentences and had been in prison for some time. The move to the new prison put the old-timers in contact with a younger, more aggressive group serving shorter sentences and changed the dynamic within the walls.

“Those older guys were a community. They had lived together and formed their own social order system,” Lord said. “The younger men are more rambunctious and tend to be more physical. They are less concerned about consequences and there tends to be a bit of jockeying.”