In late August, Maine Gov. John Baldacci made waves with his proposal to create a unified corrections system by combining Maine’s county jails and state prisons.

Calling the current system unsustainable, the governor outlined a plan designed to combat overcrowding, reduce costs and improve consistency.

Under that plan, four of the state’s 15 county jails would close. The remaining 11 would be combined with six state prisons for a total of 17 facilities under the direction of the Department of Corrections. Proponents say the plan would free at least 300 beds and save $10 million in the first year alone.

The idea hasn’t been embraced by everyone – officials at the county level have been particularly critical – and uncertainties about jail consolidation’s chances for success have generated a lot of discussion.

But to see how the plan might fare in Maine, lawmakers only need look west. Six statesalready have unified corrections systems, including nearby Vermont.

Geographically, Vermont is smaller than Maine, but the two states have similar population densities and incarceration rates. In 2005, Vermont housed 317 inmates per 100,000 residents while Maine was slightly lower at 273, according to Bureau of Justice statistics.

Other states with unified corrections systems are Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Hawaii and Alaska, but Vermont’s state-managed system has been well-established for more than 30 years.

“We inherited our system, so it’s hard to make a direct comparison,” Vermont Department of Corrections Commissioner Robert Hofmann said recently from his office in Waterbury, Vt. “But from my perspective, as things are becoming more complex, it’s even more important to streamline our operations.”

As Maine prepares for a potential corrections overhaul, the question arises: Can something that works for Vermont also work for Maine?

Vermont’s system

Vermont consolidated its corrections system in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the idea was just beginning to take hold.

Few Vermont officials who still work in corrections were around during the changes, but Dan Florentine remembers the transition.

“The idea behind our regionalization was to get inmates as close as possible to family, community and some level of support,” said Florentine, now the assistant superintendent at the Northeast Regional Correctional Facility in St. Johnsbury, Vt.

At the time, Vermont already was becoming a model for the nation by linking corrections with the community in every facet. The idea was to place offenders in the right programs at the exact right point in their treatment.

“But [consolidation] really only happened because corrections got so big and overcrowded,” Florentine said.

Sound familiar? Maine corrections experts say the county jail system in particular is overcrowded and costly, and predict the problem will get worse.

Vermont’s consolidation began with the conversion of four county jails into regional correction centers in 1967. Two other county jails closed. The remaining eight stayed open as short-term lockups, but those have closed over the years as well.

Today, Vermont has nine correctional centers under the control of the Department of Corrections, each with its own unique purpose.

The St. Johnsbury facility houses medium-security inmates with a variety of different sentences. Next door, the minimum-security Caledonia Community Work Camp has 100 beds for inmates who meet specific criteria: no sex offenders; no violent criminals; no sentences longer than 27 months.

Across the state in South Burlington, the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility is the busiest in the state. While it houses plenty of inmates, a majority of the residents are detainees waiting for their court appearances or prisoners who are looking for more permanent placement.

Denise Lord, associate commissioner for Maine’s Department of Corrections, said Maine also plans to develop specific programming options for each facility.

She also said Vermont is high on the state’s radar as an example in consolidation.

“Truthfully, we just started talking with Vermont, but we’re strongly considering sending a team over there,” she said.

Does it work?

Those involved with Vermont corrections believe their unified approach works for a number of reasons, but mainly because every facility is on the same page in terms of policy and procedure.

“The most important factor is the consistency it would provide,” John Campbell, majority leader in the Vermont state Senate, said recently of Maine’s plan.

Dave Boulanger, a caseworker at the Caledonia Community Work Camp in St. Johnsbury, admitted he has no basis for comparison but said he couldn’t imagine a system that wasn’t unified.

“One of the biggest benefits is that we’re able to make things much more uniform,” he said recently from the work camp.

The other asset, Boulanger said, is population management.

“We still deal with overcrowding, but having a centralized system makes it easy to shift prisoners as needed,” he said.

“One mistake Vermont made that I think Maine should be considering is keeping holding cells open at county jails,” said Celeste Marie Girrell, superintendent at Northeast Regional.

A question of philosophy

Perhaps the biggest reason consolidation works in Vermont, though, is the state’s collective philosophy toward corrections.

Superintendents walk the halls in plainclothes, talking cordially but frankly with inmates who refer to them by first name.

Convicted murderers share the same crowded spaces with minor offenders and those still awaiting court hearings to determine their innocence or guilt.

Many more inmates are outside jail and prison walls during daylight hours, giving back to the communities that they took from and making the transition from incarceration to society.

“Vermont is pretty liberal and, for that reason, I think this restorative justice approach has been successful here,” Corrections Commissioner Hofmann said. “We have the mind-set of reserving prison for particularly violent offenders and, hopefully, giving everyone else the chance to rehabilitate.”

Most prison officers in Vermont don’t have guns. They don’t have nightsticks or Tasers. They aren’t trained in deadly martial arts. Their discipline is achieved out of respect and conversation, according to Boulanger.

“While some regionalized facilities are still similar to old-style corrections, here there are no walls, no bars,” he said. “One of the worst things you can do for a minimum-level offender is place them in a high incarcerative environment.”

Maine doesn’t necessarily subscribe to the same philosophy, Lord said, and she’s not convinced the state is ready for a radical change.

“We have looked at restorative justice and programming around that [idea],” she said. “But while it’s a part of what we do, Maine is more about risk and recidivism reduction.”

Some in Vermont aren’t convinced consolidation can work without a serious shift in thinking.

“If Maine is seriously considering a shift, I think it should make a more fundamental decision in its philosophy on corrections,” said James Donnon, superintendent of the Caledonia Community Work Camp.

Money, money, money

Vermonters readily acknowledge that their system is not without problems. Even three decades after consolidation, the state still faces overcrowding and spiraling costs, two of the very reasons Maine is seeking a change.

Whether Maine keeps its current system or moves toward consolidation, though, everyone agrees that costs associated with corrections are not going to stop increasing.

Vermont’s consolidation did result in considerable cost savings at the time, mostly through avoiding new construction. In the last 20 years, the state has built just one new facility. The state also closed its maximum security facility in 1975 and has not rebuilt.

But Bill Lippert, a Vermont state representative and chairman of the house judiciary committee, said today’s cost issues are not unique to New England.

“I don’t think there is a state that doesn’t have problems when it comes to funding for corrections,” he said. “And we’re always trying to do something to change the curve.”

Vermont’s annual corrections budget for 2006 was $130 million, slightly lower than Maine’s $145 million. According to Bureau of Justice statistics for 2006, Maine ($37,000) spent less per inmate annually than Vermont ($42,000), but both were among the top-spending states in the country.

Commissioner Hofmann, whose background is in business rather than corrections, said the high cost of corrections in Vermont has little to do with consolidation.

“One of the reasons we’re so expensive is because our facilities are so small, and our smaller facilities tend to be the most expensive,” he said.

Because of Vermont’s low population, bigger facilities haven’t been needed, but Hofmann said that affects the bottom line.

In Maine, other than the state facilities in Warren (1,000 beds) and Windham (600), most prisons are small, and county jails are even smaller.

“Costs are going up no matter how you look at it, but they seem to be going up at a higher rate on the county level,” Lord said.

The governor has offered statistics that show Maine’s county jails have increased operational costs by 12 percent while state facilities are running only 6 percent higher from 2004 to 2006. In other words, if costs are going to increase, the state wants them to increase at the same rate across the board.

Opponents, however, say those numbers are skewed and the Maine County Commissioners Association is working to prepare its own cost analysis.

Maine’s consolidation plan also hopes to avoid new construction, and Vermont is definitely an example there. A new facility was built about five years ago in Springfield, but other than that, most of its facilities are old and worn out, officials say.

Jay Simons, superintendent at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility, said the state invests thousands each year in upkeep, “but it’s a lot cheaper than building new.”

Campbell joked that any money saved when Vermont consolidated is long gone.

In reference to Maine, though, he said, “From purely a management perspective, I don’t see how it couldn’t save money.”

The unknown

Aside from cost concerns, opponents in Maine believe jail consolidation is just the latest initiative to systematically do away with county government.

“I think the counties are united in their opposition to it,” said Ken Shea, a Hancock County commissioner and representative for the Maine County Commissioners Association. “It seems that we’re headed down the road of county government disappearing. If that’s the state’s objective, I’d rather they did it all at once.”

Some in Maine were still reeling from the governor’s plan to consolidate the school system when he announced the jail consolidation.

Campbell, however, said unifying corrections is not the same thing as creating an autocracy.

“I think corrections, and education for that matter, has outgrown a good majority of county government anyway,” he said. “For a governor to take the stance that he’s willing to save the state money even if it means stepping on toes, I think shows courage.”

Still, Gov. Baldacci’s plan has been panned by many at the county level, including his own brother, a commissioner in Penobscot County.

The Maine County Commissioners Association has agreed to sit at the table with state leaders, but what they fear most is the unknown.

Shea said he doesn’t know what will happen to debt service still owed by some counties toward their jails. He said he doubted the state will shoulder the load.

Vermont also does something that Maine has yet to embrace – board prisoners out of state, as many as 500 this year, according to Hofmann. He said it costs the state about half as much money to send prisoners away as it does to keep them in already overcrowded state facilities.

“It’s not perfect, but it has helped deal with overcrowding and cost reduction at the same time,” Hofmann said.

Maine has voted down proposals to contract with other states to board inmates, but Lord said the idea could be revisited.

Another cost concern in Vermont is transportation. Maine, with an area more than three times as large, likely would see that problem magnified.

Transportation costs are highest in moving prisoners to and from court appearances and most of Maine’s county jails are adjacent to or connected to county courthouses.

Lord said one way to combat increased transportation costs is videoconferencing. While the idea has started in some areas, such as Calais, it hasn’t exactly caught on.

There still may be more unknowns the state hasn’t considered, and only time and effort will determine if Maine can make a unified corrections system work.

If Maine decides to consolidate, it won’t happen overnight, but Vermont officials think their three-decade work in progress offers hope.