THE MAINE MONITOR — Prisoners’ medical and behavioral health needs are at the center of a debate over plans to build a new jail in Penobscot County.
County officials say a new, larger jail is necessary to meet the needs of the people in their custody, the majority of whom struggle with mental illness, addiction or both. The proposal follows previous efforts by the county to build a new jail in Bangor, and a group of concerned citizens is fighting against the latest plan, arguing that the money should instead be directed at preventing incarceration.
The issue will go to Penobscot County residents on Nov. 3 when they vote on a referendum question about whether to authorize relocating the jail from Bangor to a site outside the county seat. If approved, the county will be a step forward in a plan that has been in motion since 2018 to replace the more than 150-year-old jail and build a new correctional facility that could cost upwards of $80 million. Next Tuesday’s vote is only on whether the county can move the jail to a new location, not on specific plans for a facility.
The question voters will see on their ballot is: “Do you favor authorizing the Penobscot County Commissioners, as required under Title 30‑A, §122, to relocate the county correctional facility and any related buildings to a site outside of the county seat?”
The county has proposed building a 109,000-square-foot, 258-bed facility, most likely on a parcel in Hampden where the county negotiated an option-to-buy contract with the owner. Previous proposals, including one to build an eight-story jail in downtown Bangor on the site of a former YMCA, fell apart after public outcry or for logistical reasons.
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If voters approve the move next week, the county then plans to ask residents in next November’s election to approve a 30-year bond to finance the project. The bond is expected to be between $72 and $84 million, with county taxpayers paying about $5 million in annual debt service, though the numbers could change as design plans and construction pricing are finalized, Penobscot County Commissioner Andre Cushing said.
The county’s goal is to open a new jail in about five years. The request comes at a time when the county is under scrutiny for budget shortfalls and rising tax rates. The jail budget, which accounts for about a third of the county’s total spending, has in particular been a point of contention: Officials for several years drained county reserves so the county could fund the jail without raising taxes, leaving its bank accounts in the red, audits found.
That’s now catching up with officials. Last week, the commissioners recommended a nearly 28 percent increase in next year’s budget, which comes a year after they approved a more than 15 percent hike in property taxes.
For the group fighting against the new jail, these budget concerns also highlight questions over who is being incarcerated and whether the county could do more to address the number of people making their way through the system.
Space concerns
County officials have said the move is necessary because the current facility, last renovated nearly four decades ago, is dilapidated and overcrowded. The jail has a maximum capacity of 157 people. For the past several years, its average daily population has exceeded that, forcing the jail to board prisoners out at other county jails for $100 per person per day.
On average last year, 66 prisoners a day were boarded out to other facilities, according to data The Maine Monitor obtained in a records request. This year, the jail expects to spend about $2.1 million on boarding, per the current county budget. A 2019 report projected the jail’s average daily population could grow to 300 by 2033 based on growth since the mid 1990s.
“This is not about building a new correctional facility, it’s about replacing the current facility that is in disrepair,” Penobscot County Sheriff Troy Morton said in an emailed statement. “It’s not about locking up more people, it’s about reducing the extreme cost to board out individuals.”
County officials have said the move is necessary because the current jail in Bangor is dilapidated and overcrowded. Photo by Kristian Moravec.
A group called No Penobscot County Jail Expansion is encouraging voters to reject the proposal. The group’s position is that the county and the district attorney’s office should focus on reducing the jail population rather than building a new jail.
“It doesn’t take a lot to clean up the space, to put more coats of paint on the wall, to buy new mats, to change the shower curtains more often, to train your people better,” said Doug Dunbar, one of the group’s members and the founder of Penobscot Community Cares, a nonprofit serving people experiencing substance use disorder and homelessness.
“But this is about much more than a building to me and others. This is about a moment in time where we have the opportunity to bring about changes to the system,” he said.
After a string of drunk driving arrests nearly a decade ago, Dunbar was incarcerated at the Penobscot County Jail and later boarded out to Two Bridges Jail in Wiscasset. The Bangor jail, he said, was overpopulated and filthy. At one point he lived in a converted classroom where he and five to six other men slept on cots lined up head to toe.
The group is also concerned that a larger facility will lead to more people getting thrown in jail. Cushing and Chelsea Lynds, the Democratic candidate for district attorney in Penobscot County, said the size of the facility will not influence the number of people being charged with crimes that result in jail time.
But it’s not a concern outside the realm of possibility, said Algeria Wilson, the associate policy director at Wayne State University’s Center for Behavioral Health and Justice.
“Sometimes when you build a new jail, there is a need to use it and use it to its full capacity,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine that if you’re building a 200-bed facility that 100 of those beds were just not going to be used.”
Treatment needs
County officials have argued one reason to build a new facility is to add a medical wing and create space to address substance use and mental health issues among prisoners.
Precise data on the number of people in county jails with a substance use disorder is difficult to come by, but, according to some estimates, three-quarters of the population in Maine jails are struggling with an addiction.
County jails are spending millions of dollars a year on medical and behavioral health care for prisoners, including more than $9 million on medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder.
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In facilities that lack the space and staff to provide a higher level of health care, such as the Penobscot County Jail, prisoners are often shuttled off site to get medical attention, adding to jails’ transportation and overtime spending. Cushing said the jail lacks the space to provide even basic medical attention, such as dental cleanings or routine check-ups.
The new facility would have a nearly 4,000-square-foot medical wing with a nurses station, offices and 16 beds, according to county plans. It would also have a multipurpose space for education, substance use and re-entry programming.
It’s not a solution that satisfies Dunbar and others who oppose the new facility.
Dunbar was released from the Penobscot County Jail in 2018 after 136 days to finish his sentence through a drug treatment program. At the time, there were only a half dozen such programs statewide.
“I know that if I had just served my time in jail, particularly after what I witnessed and experienced in Penobscot County Jail,” Dunbar said, “I would have been drinking again as soon as I got to a store and could have purchased more alcohol.”
Instead he was given an alternative that saved his life, he said, something too few other people are offered.
Jail alternatives
There are currently 15 specialty courts statewide, including nine Adult Treatment and Recovery Courts, the latest of which opened in Aroostook County in July. Through these courts, people who meet certain criteria can avoid jail time if they complete specialized programs aimed at addressing the underlying substance use or mental health factors that may have led to criminal conduct.
The courts’ reach, however, remains limited. Nearly 500 people participated in one of the state’s treatment courts last year, including 32 from Penobscot County. More than 25,000 people, meanwhile, were booked in county jails.
Working with the Portland-based justice reform organization Society Impact, No Penobscot County Jail Expansion put together a proposal to increase diversion opportunities.
The proposal calls for implementing diversion programs at three stages –– before arrest, after arraignment and after release –– to expand the number of opportunities when someone’s eligibility for a diversion program can be assessed. The groups have also proposed different diversion tracks corresponding to different levels of offenses.
The majority of people incarcerated in Maine jails have not been sentenced. Maine’s indigent defense system has for years been dealing with what Lynds, who is currently an assistant district attorney, called a “crippling” defense lawyer shortage. The system is moving so slowly that, although state law caps jail sentences at less than a year, jail officials estimated that some people are stuck there for up to two years waiting for their day in court. Last year, 86 percent of the prisoners at the Penobscot County Jail were awaiting sentencing on an average day, according to data obtained by The Monitor.
But building a new jail and expanding diversion programs are not mutually exclusive, said Lynds, who is running unopposed.
“We need more avenues that are not incarceration to send people to, for sure,” she said. “But even if we had the best diversion programs in the world, we still have to have a jail.”
The current facility is unsafe, she said. The layout is dysfunctional; there isn’t enough storage space; and there are constant plumbing issues, among other concerns. It would cost the county $1.22 billion over 35 years to repair, maintain and operate the current jail, versus $850 million to build a new jail, pay back the bond and run annual operations over the same time period, according to an analysis done by consulting firm Dirigo Strategic Advisors for the Board of Commissioners.
A sign outside the Penobscot County Jail. Photo by Kristian Moravec.
Lynds said she agrees that it would be ideal to get people the help they need before they end up in the criminal justice system but that it is not always feasible. Regardless, she added, the jail still has a responsibility to care for the people in its custody in a facility that is safe and well equipped.
Wilson, from Wayne State, warned that jails should not be thought of as the “first stop for mental health treatment or substance use disorder treatment,” adding that jails can be mentally destabilizing for many people. While public safety is a priority, so, too, is ensuring that people have access to treatment outside of jails.
There’s a balance to strike when it comes to building new jail facilities, said Wanda Bertram, a spokesperson for the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative. While they should not be dirty and dysfunctional, they are ultimately institutions built for surveillance and should not be thought of as a substitute for a treatment center.
Bertram said that’s why increasing community-based programs should be a part of the conversation. Diversion programs can help. But addressing “crimes of poverty” –– camping bans, unpaid fines and other nonviolent, minor offenses –– would go a long way.
“People who are being brought to jail for these reasons often have serious unmet needs in the way of housing or in the way of health care,” Bertram said. “Are you really building something that you know is going to be better maintained, or is it really just kind of like we’re recycling the same kind of solutions and ideas that we’ve always had?”
By Emily Bader
