Bills seek improvements in jail services

AUGUSTA – State legislators next week will begin tackling bills intended to improve services at county jails, particularly among inmates with mental health issues, while easing the burden on taxpayers.

Five bills are slated to go to public hearings before the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee at 10 a.m. Monday at a time when counties are contending with crowded jails, an increase in the demand for medical and mental health services, and budgets that are getting ever tighter.

One bill already has received the endorsement of many sheriffs in the state. Sponsored by Rep. Kenneth Fletcher, R-Winslow, LD 106 would reduce the minimum sentence required for felons to serve their time in a state prison facility instead of a county jail.

This potentially would reduce the number of inmates in jails. Inmates sentenced to six months or more for felonies would go to prisons, as was the case before 1989, when the standard was changed to nine months.

Another provision in the bill would have the state pick up a greater share of the tab when state inmates released on probation violate probation and are sent back to serve the rest of the time, many times in county jails at the expense of local property owners.

Such costs are further driving up jail budgets, and county officials have no control over that,

Penobscot County Sheriff Glenn Ross said this week. Last year, inmates released from state prison served 397 days in Penobscot County Jail after they were arrested for violating probation and another 104 days after their probations were revoked in court.

That amounts to tens of thousands of dollars in boarding costs when one considers it costs $90 per day to house an inmate at PCJ and $104 per day if the jail has to board out inmates in other county jails.

“If they didn’t meet the terms of their state sentence, they should go back to the state prison and not here,” Ross said.

Fletcher said he sees the bill as a matter of principle at a time when people are demanding property tax relief, with the bill shifting the burden back to the state and a broader range of taxpayers where it belongs. But with an expected $38 million price tab to be picked up by the state, Fletcher acknowledged this week that it likely will be a tough sell.

Eleven of the state’s county sheriffs at a monthly meeting of the Maine Sheriffs’ Association voted unanimously on Thursday to endorse LD 106, Ross said.

Rep. Sean Faircloth, D-Bangor, has two bills to address inmates with mental health conditions, another major issue facing jails and the communities they serve.

One bill, LD 29, would make it easier for those charged with crimes and found not criminally responsible by reason of mental disease or defect to be released from mental health facilities, provided they meet standards.

As it stands now, the requirements for release from the mental health facilities are too stiff, Faircloth said, prompting attorneys to have their clients plead guilty and go to jail to serve a shorter sentence than what they’d get in the mental health facility. In jail they get no treatment or counseling.

The patients still would need to meet standards for release and in cases where necessary, be required to take their medications once released.

The other bill, LD 927, calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to study ways to make mental health services more available for inmates as well as preventative measures that would have people avoid jail while still getting services.