Overcrowded state prisons lack funding Inmates sleep on floors in some packed facilities

AUGUSTA – The head of the state’s prison system said Wednesday that correctional facilities are so overcrowded in Maine some inmates are sleeping on the floor.

While he is taking emergency measures to ease the situation, they won’t solve the problem, Corrections Commissioner Marty Magnusson told members of the legislative panel that oversees his department.

“We have 2,082 inmates in the adult correctional system,” Magnusson said. Lacking the housing capacity, “we had 19 inmates sleeping on the floor at the Maine Correctional Center [in Windham] last night.”

The commissioner told members of the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee that he is implementing several “emergency” steps and planning others at the various correctional facilities to handle the surge of inmates that is projected to grow to 2,192 in the next year.

He said the Downeast Correctional Facility in Machiasport was built to house 145 inmates, but that he has to crowd four men in cells made for three and five men in cells made for four in order to fit 165 prisoners.

The Charleston Correctional Facility will go from 75 inmates to 100 inmates and a segregation unit that can house an additional 12 inmates can be opened on short notice, he said. The Central Maine Pre-Release Center in Hallowell will lose its weight room with that space converted to a 12-bed dormitory.

The Maine State Prison in Warren has been ordered to buy an additional 15 bunks for the medium security unit. That would convert 15 of the 60 single-inmate cells to double-inmate cells.

And, he said, the women’s unit at the facility in Windham was designed for 72 prisoners, but is at nearly twice that level.

“We are looking to see what other options we may have,” Magnusson said. “We are asking the county jails what space they may have, and we are looking nationally at what is available and at what cost.”

He said there are not any additional funds available in the current budget to pay for additional space. He said the sharp increase in inmates has been more rapid than expected and occurred at a time when traditionally there have not been increases.

“We are coming up on our worst time for getting additional inmates,” he said. “That is January through May.”

Gov. John Baldacci said he has been briefed on the problem and agrees with the steps Magnusson has taken in the short term. He said a long term solution needs a far broader approach than just finding more beds for inmates.

“I have talked to the chief justice about this and we are going to have the opportunity to talk with legislative leadership about this,” Baldacci said Wednesday. “We need to talk about these issues and see what steps we can take and what are the underlying problems.”

But the governor said the problem needs to be solved within existing resources. He said he has no plans to ask for additional funds for corrections.

“We have to take a thorough look at this,” said Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, the co-chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee. “I am very concerned at what the commissioner has said about the women and about this whole overcrowding problem.”

He said there had been some indications that prisoner populations were growing faster than expected, but he was “very surprised” at Magnusson’s report.

“I am sure this will come up in the budget hearings, and you can be assured this committee will be looking at what we do about this,” Diamond said.

His surprise was echoed by other committee members. Sen. Roger Sherman, R-Houlton, is serving as a senator on the panel for the first time, but was on the committee as a state representative eight years ago when lawmakers funded the new prison and expansions to other facilities.

“We have got to look at who it is we are locking up,” he said. “We have already invested a lot of money in our corrections system and not all that long ago.”

Sherman said he agreed with Diamond that the committee needs to hold hearings to get at the reasons for the spike in the number of inmates and what may have to be done to address the problem.

Magnusson said another part of the problem involves more violent and aggressive behavior by a growing number of inmates, which is placing greater demands on staff and facilities.

“We are currently tracking 13 gangs at the prison,” he said. “We weren’t seeing that four years or even two years ago.”