Top 10 Reasons
to Stop the New Penobscot County Jail
1. We already rely on jails and prisons too much (and it’s not working.)
In the USA, jails and prisons are our #1 solution - as a nation, we lead the world in locking up the most people, by percentage.
In fact, there are now an incredible two million people in US prisons and jails.
That’s a 500% increase over the last 40 years.
Yet, there has actually been no crime wave to justify all this incarceration. Instead, this huge increase has been mostly due to changes in the way people are sentenced and the “War on Drugs.”
We’re locking up more people all the time, even though crime isn’t actually going up. And the real problems that we face, like poverty, homelessness and substance use, aren’t going away.
2. Jails don’t fix the real issues - they make them worse.
The majority of people who are jailed:
Have a substance use disorder,
Are mentally ill,
Live in poverty,
Are unhoused (homeless)
Don’t have medical care
or all of the above.
And people who are arrested multiple times are even more likely to have these issues. Substance use, illness, poverty and homelessness are driving the cycle of jailing people over and over. Nothing gets better, because the same problems are still there - just as bad as before.
In fact, jail can even make these problems worse by making people’s mental and physical health fall apart, or causing them to lose their home, health insurance, or custody of their children. These losses all feed the cycle of incarceration.
3. Bail reform would make new jail beds totally unnecessary.
How much money someone has should never determine how much time they spend in jail.
Bail was never meant to keep people (presumed innocent) in jail for months awaiting their day in court, but that's the case for over 70% of people incarcerated at Penobscot County Jail and other jails around the country.
The District Attorney's Office has the power to lower or eliminate bails in many cases, which would immediately bring Penobscot County Jail's population down to its legal capacity.
No expansion is needed when fair bail reform is put in place.
4. Diversion programs are a better option.
When someone’s crime is nonviolent and they can safely remain in the community, there are much better options than jail.
Many cities and counties use alternatives to jail. Diversion programs keep people out of jail by enrolling them in an intensive program to solve the problems that led to incarceration and put their lives back together.
People who participate in diversion programs can keep their homes, jobs, medical care and families intact. That gives them a foundation to improve their lives and be law-abiding.
Alternative sentencing can also include monitoring, community service and home confinement approaches.
5. Racial minorities are more likely to be jailed.
Racist policing and sentencing and systemic inequality (a bigger chance of experiencing poverty and lack of opportunity when you are a person of color) makes racial minorities more likely to end up in jail.
Nationally, Black men and women make up just 13% of the general population, but account for 21% of people who were arrested once and 28% of people arrested multiple times in 2017.
In Penobscot County, the racial inequality of jails is even worse. In Penobscot County, approximately 10% of those jailed on any given day are Black, while only 1% of Penobscot County identifies as Black. And Penobscot County Jail's population is 3% Native, while Penobscot County as a whole is 1.2% Native.
6. “If you build it, they will come.”
With limited space in the Penobscot County Jail, there has been steady pressure to keep people out of jail and in community-based programs.
The need to address overcrowding has led to increased use of pre-trial services. If someone is in jail and can’t post bail, pre-trial services can screen them to see if they present a risk. If not, they can safely be released and supervised at home by the pre-trial service provider. This keeps people from losing their job, home, children or medical care during a time when they have not yet been convicted of any crime.
With a new, bigger jail, there will be less incentive to jail fewer people.
The proposed jail will house more people. If it is constructed using modules, it may be able to be expanded further. Yet it will never be enough to solve the problems that jail is not built to solve - poverty, homelessness and drug use disorders.
7. The data actually says Penobscot County is getting safer.
Many of our neighbors encounter unhoused people, panhandlers or petty thefts in their neighborhood or downtown and conclude we are in the middle of a crime wave.
We understand it can be nervewracking to feel like your city or county is changing.
The data says that we’re in the midst of a housing crisis and a crisis of poverty - but not a crime wave.
The population of Maine and of Penobscot County is growing smaller and older, and as it does, crime has been falling.
In 2023, Maine was the safest state in the country when it comes to violent crimes. Penobscot County earns an A+ in the violent crime safety category from Crimegrade.com, and a B+ in property crime safety.
Our small, aging, and mostly rural population does need investment - but not in the form of a new jail.
8. It’s too expensive - and there are cheaper options already in development.
The new jail will be expensive, and it will likely be financed through bonds that taxpayers will have to pay interest on for decades.
Before asking Penobscot County taxpayers for tens of millions to more than double the size of the jail, the county has an obligation to explore all less expensive options.
There are many options that cost less than jail and work better.
For those who committed a crime while in the grips of substance use disorder, there are sober living homes, recovery programs and medical detox.
For those struggling to break the cycle of repeated jail and probation violations, there are re-entry programs and workforce training programs.
For those who are held pre-trial and haven’t been convicted of anything, there are Pre-Trial services and the statewide Task Force on Pretrial Justice Reform which has now been re-established.
The county has an obligation to the taxpayers to explore these effective and affordable options, before asking for tens of millions over many years for a new jail.
9. The “sticker price” is not all you’ll pay.
A bigger jail costs more— more to build, more to finance, and more to operate.
With the possibility that a new jail could be modular, there’s a possibility of ongoing expansion in the future, with bigger budgets and more requests for taxpayers to foot the bill.
10. Jail causes serious illness and death.
Jail is dangerous. It’s not just that people happen to die while they’re there— they die because of their incarceration.
Deaths in jails can come from medical emergencies (which may go untreated), suicide, withdrawal from drugs or Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) for substance abuse disorder, violence from a correctional officer, withholding of medication, poor conditions and more.
Deaths also happen more after someone leaves jail. People who used drugs before jail may have less tolerance for the drug after being in jail for a while. When they are released, often without a treatment plan, they go back to using — and the dose that they could tolerate before is now too much. This results in overdose and may cause death. “Post-release opioid-related overdose mortality” is the leading cause of death among people released from jails or prisons.
Deaths have been on the rise since 2010. Most deaths (77%) happened among people who were in pre-trial status (not convicted of any crime). Almost 40% of all deaths occurred during the first week of incarceration.
Recent data shows a strong association between jail incarceration and death rates from infectious diseases, chronic lower respiratory disease, drug use, and suicide.