GOP primary race for Knox County sheriff revs up

ROCKLAND – Incumbent Sheriff Daniel Davey and retired Police Chief Alfred Ockenfels have more in common than wanting to win the Republican primary for sheriff.

Both men have decades of experience in law enforcement and each has similar ideas of what is needed to improve the state of Knox County Jail. They both also have lawsuits hanging over their heads, but in Davey’s case, a judge harshly criticized him in a November ruling on the pending litigation by holding him potentially liable for alleged illegal strip searches. The county is the primary defendant in the suit.

In Ockenfels’ case, a former Rockland police lieutenant names him as a defendant in a discrimination suit against the city. Lt. William Donnelly alleges the city breached his employment contract and has continued to retaliate against him for his report of workplace discrimination.

Davey, 64, of Warren has been sheriff for 22 years and hopes to keep his job. Before his 1984 election to the sheriff’s post, he was a detective sergeant with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office for 11 years. He started out in law enforcement as a Maine State Police trooper, serving eight years in that job.

“This is my 22nd year as sheriff,” Davey said Thursday. “This is probably the most difficult time I have experienced in the sheriff’s office in my career and it involves the jail.

“Law enforcement is not the issue,” he said, meaning the patrol division. “I am fully satisfied there. What I want is quality arrests, not numbers.”

The number one problem facing the sheriff’s office is overcrowding in the jail as well as mental health and substance abuse issues in the jail population, according to Davey.

“I want to be here,” he said. “I have a lot of work to do that I have already started.”

Ockenfels, 60, of Rockport, retired in March 2005 after 26 years with the Rockland Police Department, 16 as chief. In April 2005, he left Maine to serve as a police trainer and adviser in Iraq. He spent three months in Baghdad and three months in Al Kut before returning home in October.

“Knox County needs a new vision and a new direction for law enforcement,” Ockenfels said of his reasons for wanting to be sheriff. “I’ve got the proven leadership and experience to implement the changes needed.”

From the top, down, Knox County Sheriff’s Office has 73 employees compared to Rockland Police Department’s 22.

Ockenfels says fiscal responsibility and accountability are lacking in the sheriff’s department.

“People are very concerned about the escalation of costs concerning operation of the jail,” he said.

Ockenfels mentioned alternative sentencing as a way to reduce overcrowding at the jail and looking into regionalization of jail services, which are some of the same solutions being considered by a jail study committee, a project Davey spearheaded. Davey offered similar solutions to reducing the jail population.

Ockenfels plans to implement programs for operating under the influence and drug offenders similar to one run by Volunteers of America, he said.

“Only the most serious offenders need to be in jail,” he said.

Like Martha Stewart, he said, more white-collar criminals and substance abuse offenders need to be monitored through house arrests.

“You can’t keep adding bricks and mortar,” Ockenfels said.

“You don’t want to arrest a person with a pill in their pocket,” Davey said, noting more than half of the jail incarcerations are substance abuse-related. “We’d much rather pick up the [drug] dealers.”

More effort on drug rehabilitation is needed, he said.

Neither Davey nor Ockenfels would directly address the pending litigation on strip searches at the jail.

When asked how each would ensure policies and procedures and standards are adhered to by employees, Ockenfels said, “I would be fully engaged as an administrator. I’d be in the jail on a daily basis.”

“I rely on the jail administrator, who is the keeper of the jail,” Davey said, noting employees are trained on all jail regulations when certified as corrections officers.

“We have human error,” Davey said. “Thousands of people come through this jail every year.”

Whoever wins the primary election Tuesday, June 13 will compete Tuesday, Nov. 7 against Democratic candidate Donna Dennison, 53, of St. George, and Independent candidate Todd Butler, 45, of South Thomaston. Butler, who is the presiding sheriff’s chief deputy, filed his nonparty nomination papers on Tuesday, he said. Dennison is a longtime detective with the department.