Prison fixes may not be temporary Transfers, expansions ease crowding

AUGUSTA – Many of the short-term fixes for the overcrowding in the state’s prison system included in the new state budget may be part of the long-term solution to the problem, says Corrections Commissioner Martin Magnusson.

These include housing of some female inmates at the former Bangor Mental Health Institute and of minimum- and medium-security prisoners at the Charleston Correctional Facility.

“All of the items that were in the budget have been put in place or are being put in place as fast as we can,” Magnusson said in an interview Tuesday, “but we are also seeing more inmates coming into our system every day.”

In one recent week, he said, 36 new inmates were added to the state system even as other inmates were being transferred to county jails.

The two-year state budget that took effect July 1 addressed the overcrowding problem – which some lawmakers had branded a “crisis” – but only through next June 30. The Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee will meet this fall to review corrections policies and decide what recommendations to make for the January session of the Legislature to consider.

“Some of what has been described as short-term will probably be part of the long-term solution,” Magnusson said. “I think there is a realization of that, at least on the committee.”

For example, he said, one floor of a building at the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center in Bangor is being renovated for use as a transition facility for women inmates nearing the end of their sentences at the prison in South Windham. He said the renovations will be completed next month and bids are being evaluated for services and staffing that will be needed.

“That’s going to be an ongoing need, as is the staffing at the [Maine State Prison in Warren], and, I think, for many of the steps we have taken,” he said.

Magnusson said the state has completed moving 44 inmates into a vacant section of the York County Jail and is providing the staff to operate that part of the facility. In addition, he said, an additional 102 inmates have been placed in county jails to ease the overcrowding.

The staff to open an unused portion of the Charleston Correctional Facility has been hired and trained, and Magnusson said the first 20 inmates have been sent to the facility. The number will grow to as many as 55 inmates later this summer.

“From what I understand, things are going relatively smoothly,” said Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, co-chairman of the criminal justice panel. “I know they are having problems getting all the staff hired at the prison [in Warren], but that has always been a problem.”

Diamond said he agrees that some of the steps taken and funded for only a year will need to be part of the long-term solution the panel will work to develop this fall. He expects both the expansion at Charleston and the new transition facility for women in Bangor will be part of the committee’s recommendations, but he says that will be a committee decision.

“People don’t realize that Maine has one of the lowest incarceration rates in the country, yet we have an overcrowding problem,” he said. “If we had rates like other states, we would be in much worse shape.”

Rep. Pat Blanchette, D-Bangor, a longtime committee member, agreed. She said the state needs to look at the corrections issues from a broad perspective and “get creative” with the approaches used to deal with prisons and prisoners.

“The commissioner is going to need to sit down with the county commissioners across the state and look at whether there is a way for all to cooperate and build a regional minimum-security facility,” she said. “We will eventually need one, and they all know that.”

Blanchette agreed that many of the changes that have been funded for just one year will be part of a long-term solution and need additional appropriations, but she also said the committee needs to look at other options, including sentencing alternatives.

“We want to lock up those that are a threat to society,” she said. “But there are some we are locking up today that we could use other means, like those electronic bracelets, to confine these inmates in their homes.”

Rep. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick, the House chairman of the committee, said the panel has a lot of work to accomplish before the January session. He said the solution is not just more guards and more jail cells but a review of what people are being jailed for and why.

“We have to look at the minimum and mandatory sentences we have,” he said. “We have to look at the criminal code. We have to look at everything.”