Despite repairs, crowded Downeast Correctional Facility is showing its years

BUCKS HARBOR – It may be an aging fortress, but to the more than 150 men who call it home, the Downeast Correctional Facility is just plain old.

The medium- and minimum-security prison houses everyone from murderers at the end of their prison term to men who broke windows in a building. The prison was built to hold 96 men. “We are way over capacity and so are the other facilities [in the state],” Warden C. Mark Caton said recently.

Prisoners are not lifers. “We have no long-term prisoners right now,” Caton said. “Most of them are seven years or less. Our job is to do what we can to program them and work with them so they become minimum-security and we try to send them over to the Charleston Correctional Facility, which is all minimum and has good work programs, or the Central Maine Pre-Release [program].”

Now a group is looking to replace the aging facility.

The buildings that sit on a small hill once belonged to the 907th Radar Squadron. According to earlier Bangor Daily News stories, in the 1980s the business of the day was tracking aircraft across Maine skies. In 1988 the U.S. Air Force ended its 30-year relationship with Bucks Harbor.

The old buildings, which according to BDN files were used at one time for the chow hall and barracks, are still there, but instead of military men in uniform who could go into Machias after work for a brew, today’s occupants are dressed in street clothes and are locked down. The prison opened in 1990. The state has spent more than $1 million in repairs, and more is needed.

In 1993, there was talk of closing the facility because of Department of Corrections budget problems, but the facility was given a reprieve.

In 1995, the Downeast Correctional Facility again was targeted for closure, but efforts by Washington County’s then legislative delegation kept that from happening.

In 2002, voters rejected a $25 million bond issue that would have led to construction of a new facility in Machias and funded improvements at the Maine Correctional Center in South Windham.

Maine officials have been talking about the problems of overcrowding at the state prisons for years.

Warden Caton’s office looks out over a wire fence strung with spiraled razor wire. “The facility is well over 50 years old and it was never built to last that long,” he said, adding that it wouldn’t last another 50 years. “We had some architects and engineers in several years ago. They told us that it wouldn’t be worth trying to modify, fix it or refurbish it,” the warden said. Three dormitories house all of the prisoners.

The prison sits on about 20 acres.

The buildings may be old, but the facility provides at least one benefit to the community – jobs. “I have a waiting list for every position at this facility,” Caton said. “I have no trouble getting employees.” The facility employs about 70 people. Of those some 35 are correctional officers.

Caton said he also has a low turnover rate. “I have people that have college degrees that are working as basic correctional officers. These people have been with us 23 years,” he said. “You can’t buy that expertise. It takes five years to train a good correctional officer.” The average salary for a correctional officer is between $26,000 and $35,000, with state benefits.

Caton said the facility should be looked at as more than just a place where people are locked up, rather “as viable employment and as an economic tool,” he said.

A new facility is needed, the warden said.

Enter Sen. Kevin Raye, R-Perry.

Earlier this month, 20 people, including nine from the Washington County Development Authority, attended a meeting in Machias to discuss the future of the Downeast Correctional Facility. Raye cautioned that the first meeting was exploratory and more meetings were necessary.

The WCDA was created, Raye said, to handle the disposition of the former Cutler Navy base. “In the last Legislature I sponsored legislation expanding their powers, their reach to all of Washington County,” he said. “I wanted to have in place an entity that was similar to the Loring Development Authority. That has produced enormous benefits for Aroostook County,” he said.

Because of how it was configured, Raye said, the WCDA could borrow money, build a prison and rent it to the state. Raye said existing jobs would be saved, and future jobs were a possibility.

Raye said it might be possible to build a new prison on land near where the current prison now sits. He said a new facility was needed. “No one is interested in coddling prisoners. We’re not building Taj Mahals for prisoners,” Raye said.

But not everyone who attended the meeting was in favor of a new prison.

Political activist Nancy Oden of Jonesboro was there and didn’t like the idea. She said the WCDA was a hybrid organization that would make a profit off prisoners. “This is a backdoor entry into private, for-profit prisons,” she said. She said she did not believe people wanted that kind of system. “It’s a bad idea,” she said.

“That’s her thing,” Raye responded. The senator denied that the group was interested in building prisons for profit. “I reject that categorically,” he said. “Her concern is without merit.”

Oden said she would like the state to make decisions that would make prisoners more productive people. If there are too many prisoners, Oden said, then there should be other ways of dealing with them including parole for nonviolent offenders. She termed mandatory jail sentences “job protection” and “empire building” by government agencies.

Prisons also need to be more self-sustaining, she said. “I would only support a prison at Bucks Harbor if it included greenhouses and gardens. Growing their own food, including chickens. … doing productive work instead of locking them in cages,” she said.

Raye also said that if Bucks Harbor were to close, it would be a blow to the community because of the lost jobs. “We need prison space. It’s going to be somewhere, there’s got to be some method of making it possible, and I think that WCDA is the vehicle that could benefit not only the state, but Washington County,” he said.