A commission charged with improving Maine’s corrections system to reduce prison overcrowding and the burden on the probation system faced the nearly impossible task of balancing public safety with prisoners’ rights to rehabilitate themselves. After only a few months, the commission, a diverse group of prosecutors, judges, sheriffs, lawmakers, corrections and mental health officials, came up with some workable solutions to ease difficult problems facing states across the country.

Their suggestions, formalized in LD 1903, which had initial positive votes in the House and Senate on Thursday, are the beginning of solving the problem, not the end. A key provision of the bill would allow those who commit some misdemeanors, such as shoplifting and growing marijuana, to be sentenced to pay restitution or perform community service, rather than serve time on probation. Probation is now the most heavily used sentencing option in many types of cases, but with caseloads topping 140 per probation officer, the system is unmanageable, lawyers and corrections officials said.

Tackling the prison-overcrowding problem will be more difficult. Although Maine has one of the lowest crime rates in the country, it has the fastest-growing prison population in the country. Under the bill, some prisoners, but not those serving time for domestic violence, sex crimes and murder, could also be released earlier if they participate in education and work programs to earn “good time.” The sentences for some sex offenders would be increased. The bill also calls for more “alternative sentencing,” such as community service and restitution, to keep people out of jail, although judges would still retain discretion in meting out sentences. None of the changes would apply to those already serving time or awaiting sentencing.

In addition, the bill calls for an emergency appropriation of more than $2 million to add 212 beds at the Maine State Prison in Warren, the Maine Correctional Facility in Windham and the Charleston Correctional Facility.

While these changes will chip away at the prison-overcrowding situation, the problem will be far from solved. Maine and the nation’s prison overcrowding cannot be meaningfully diminished without also dealing with mental health. With the closing of state mental health facilities and the downsizing of others, jails have become the holding pens for people who need treatment not incarceration. Nationally, correctional facilities house eight times as many mentally ill people as do state psychiatric facilities. Estimates are that at least one in five prison inmates suffers from mental illness. Compounding the problem is that well over half of inmates have drug and alcohol abuse problems, making jails detoxification facilities too.

On a single day last fall, two inmates tried to commit suicide while being held at the Penobscot County Jail. One inmate at the state prison in Warren has tried to commit suicide four times while being bounced between jail and mental hospitals.

Passing LD 1903 is a start – provided that the reviews of the success of the alternative sentencing systems called for in the bill are funded and take place and that necessary changes, reinstituting parole for drug or second offenses if warranted, for example, are made based on such reviews. The commission is right to want to continue its work. Future efforts will focus on mental health and juvenile offender issues and should be funded by the Legislature.

Fixing the state’s correctional system will take time and money – both in short supply – but tackling difficult problems now will avert a coming crisis.