BUCKS HARBOR, Maine — Closing the Down East Correctional Facility would relocate about two dozen low-security inmates who have been trained by the Maine Forest Service to assist in fighting wildfires within Washington County.
Mothballing the facility, which is now at capacity with 149 inmates, has been proposed by Maine Department of Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte. He claims reassigning the minimum- and medium-security prisoners now housed there to the five other adult prisons statewide would save the state $4 million a year. The prison’s annual budget is now $6.5 million.
Ponte’s proposal wasn’t included in recommendations made in late November by the Task Force to Streamline and Prioritize Core Government Services, a bipartisan group tasked by Gov. Paul LePage to find ways to cut spending as one means of reducing a hefty state budget deficit. The task force sent the proposal back to the governor’s office. No new proposal has since been put forth, and the budget now under consideration does not call for closing the facility.
Ultimately, however, the facility’s fate rests in the hands of the Legislature. The fiscal pros and cons of closing the Bucks Harbor prison will be discussed at some point by the Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety, according to Rep. David Burns, R-Whiting, a retired Maine State Police officer who is now a member of that committee.
Burns was among a regional delegation of legislators who hosted a Dec. 19 visit to the Bucks Harbor facility by LePage, Ponte and Dan Billings, the governor’s chief counsel.
“We invited them, and they saw for themselves that this is not a decrepit old rat hole, which is how some people have described it,” Burns said Tuesday. “It needs upkeep, but it’s safe, it’s warm and it’s comfortable. I think they do a remarkable job there, both for the community and for these people who hopefully will make something of themselves. I think it’s helpful for these people to get out into the community and to give something back.”
While not committing to keeping the prison open during that visit, Burns said LePage was “very receptive” to concerns about how a closure would affect Washington County communities within a region with Maine’s highest unemployment rate.
“The projection is that it would eliminate 68 direct jobs, and a total of 128 jobs if you include the indirect jobs,” Burns said Tuesday. “It certainly would have an incredibly negative impact.”
Minimum security inmates are organized into small work crews that, under the watchful eyes of prison guards, staff public works projects outside the prison, doing everything from road crew work for the Maine Department of Transportation to painting local community churches. At any given time, the prison’s population includes between 20 and 30 inmates who have been trained at the prison by the Maine Forest Service to assist with fighting wildfires.
“They’ve certainly been a good crew for us,” said Bill Williams, the state’s chief forest ranger. “We’ll use them when there’s significant fire activity. While they are a great resource, they are not our only resources. We train between 1,000 and 1,500 people a year through our wildfire training academy, including forest industry personnel who work in the woods.
“We’ve lost singe groups before,” he said of the possibility of Down East inmates no longer being available. “We have a very dynamic roster. Some years our firefighting ranks grow, and some years they don’t. It’s a very fluid and dynamic process.”
Williams said the Maine Forest Service is involved in a number of regional manpower alliances that can import trained firefighters as wildfire activity requires, even crews from Canada. The agency also has a prison training program similar to the one in Washington County at Maine’s Charleston Correctional Facility.
The Down East Correctional Facility was established in 1985, when the state took ownership of what was once a U.S. Air Force radar installation. The facility has been targeted for closure twice before, in 1994 and 1995. As a result of deferred maintenance over the past 26 years, Commissioner Ponte estimates it would cost the state $1 million to bring the facility up to code.
Closing that place would be a bone-headed move, so it will probably happen
Once again our Republican Legislature and Blaine House seem all too willing to turn their back on Washington County. I’d bet money that the majority of the employees at Bucks Harbor voted Republican, as did all of Washington County.
Typical liberal thought process… Giving “gifts” to those that vote for you as opposed to doing the right thing.
That exact thought process is how we ended up with such high welfare rolls.
This liberal is thinking that putting 68 people out of work in Washington County is probably like putting 680 out of work in Portland. Worse in fact because there are NO jobs within commuting distance. The result will be more houses going to foreclosure. The market for houses in Washington County is at an all time low.
Another thing that will be interesting to monitor will be the increase in injury to a large percentage of those inmates that have been segregated to DECF because of their sex offender status. Now before you get your panties in a bunch, I don’t have sympathy for them. I do however have sympathy for the staff that’s going to have more problems dumped into their laps when these inmates are moved. Ponte doesn’t give a large rats rectum because he doesn’t have to deal with it personally. He can sit in his office and write memo’s.
I thought you liberals hated big evil business. The state is worst of them all. You can choose which business you give your money to, but the state just takes it. You have no say in it at all. Downeast is full of sex offenders so I wonder how they can have fire crews since sex offenders are not allowed out in the community. When was the last time downeast went out on a fire?
DECF is the easiest way to segregate the majority of convicted sex offenders. That doesn’t mean that every inmate there is a sex offender. They have quite a few inmates there who have family in Washington County. The families appriceate the lower costs of seeing their incarcerated relatives.
As of yet, we don’t have big business running our prison system in this state. That will probably be the next step in Governor LePage and Commisioner Ponte’s plans.
If you are able bodied and have a clean record, why don’t you apply for a job in any of the jails or prisons in this state. That way you can gain a greater understanding of the subject and what it entails.
The state of maine is big business, downeast hasn’t sent a fire crew out in over two years. By the way, you don’t have to be able bodied to work at the prison. Maybe you should practice what you preach. That way you can gain a greater understanding of the subject and what it entails.
Been there done that. I am still able bodied and have retired from that line of work.
If the prison jail system is a business in this state, where are the receipts, dividends, stock holder meetings, etc.?
The fact is that all these facilities are in existance to house people who have been deemed to need segregation from society by the citizens of this state. A time out for adults, so to speak.
You do have to be able bodied to work as a Corrections Officer in the prison system.
Get rid of the waste!!!!!
it surely is a waste to the people who feed their children off of the income that comes from the prison.. truly wasteful, children should probably just go hungry instead.
$4,000,000 would put a lot of honest, non-criminal, folks to work as firefighters in Washington County.
maybe they could hire some more rangers LOL
actually it would make it so that we don’t have sufficient numbers of firefighters. these jobs are not paid and I can assure you if more people wanted them, they would have them.
Sell it to Roxann Q. She likes to buy place’s. As far as the fire frighters. Send all the fire wardens chasing each other around all winter in 4×4 trucks looking for fires. Ever notice the pickups all shine. No mud or drit on them. Do’nt get drity riding to the store or mall.
Not to get off the topic nfork but the “fire wardens” you speak of are actually forest rangers who have a big responsibility all year not just during fire season. They are responsible for all timber harvesting rules and regs, littering, and lots more throughout the year.
http://www.maine.gov/doc/mfs/ffchome.htm
well you seem to know alot maybe you one of the rangers. hope the gov goes after you soon and clean house.
Not many welfare supporters on here today, you only have two likes, compared to ridge55’s eight. Good luck on spreading your hatred.
Why are we housing low to medium security inmates? If they are non-violent, why are they in prison? Drug offenses? While child molesters get 15 days in county lock-up. Low security inmates should be home, working. If they have no job, they should be home at night, picking up trash on the sides of the road by day. There should be no, or very little, punishment for victimless crimes.
Why are we housing low to medium security inmates? If they are non-violent, why are they in prison? Drug offenses? While child molesters get 15 days in county lock-up.
*******************************************************************
They’re not non-violent drug offenders. Bucks Harbor is the prison that houses sex offenders, tree-jumpers among them.
That place has a lot more sex offenders than you realize. They do not need to be out on the streets. I do however, agree with the victimless crime thing, but drug dealers have plenty of victims….they may choose to do it, but it isn’t ok for the dealers to sell it to them.
This will more than likely be flagged, but I know Bucks Harbor is well known as “skinner harbor”. But to sell a joint and get a 600 dollar fine and afew days in jail, versus molesting a child and getting a 15 day stay, thats where things are crazy. Refer Madness was a better marketing scheme than the war on protecting our children. I partake, but I make clear nearly every day the danger of drugs to my children. I thank God,(i’m athiest), for the BDN for their bath salt stories and drug related robberies, so I can say to my girls, “see how stupid drugs are?”, or ” look at what that person has done to themselves….”My girls are smart, because we have worked with them. When they grow up, they may have a garden of corn, squash, potatoes, and if they choose, cannabis. They do not need to go to Bucks Harbor or even county jail for such a foolish and harmfull law. Aww, shucks, i’d keep on, but smoked an hour ago and am ready for bed….got work tomorrow!! ‘nite all.
I am not saying I don’t agree with you on the whole justice system. Pot is one thing, they should legalize it as far as I am concerned, but the heroin, bath salts and other high crime drugs should not be sold on our streets. The child molesters should never be let out. They WILL do it again…and again.
Crime is big business according to former cop Burns now Augusta hack’s mantra.
It is the #1 growth business in our economy .
Our criminal justice system has always been a welfare workfare program
for the unemployable. The Massachusetts Correctional Association did a study
years ago showing there was little to distinguish between the education and social background
of inmates and jailers.
C’mon folks, the principal job requirement is the ability to turn a key, eh?
Here is what Maine voters and taxpayers get for the $35,000.00 they spend to
keep 1 man in a Maine prison for 1 year.
1. 75 out of 100 inmates will return to prison within 3 years
2. inmates come out of prison more vicious and competent as criminals
3. The recidivism rates published by the Maine Department of Corrections has no relevance to reality of people who leave prison and go on to commit new crimes. A person has to be arrested before they become a recidivism statistic.
4. Maine voters and taxpayers have no say over how they want the criminal justice system
to operate because Maine does not have a volunteer civilian police review board with subpoena powers.
Maine voters and taxpayers own and fund these electronic cesspools called prisons.
5. Former inmates that do survive on the streets tend to marry and perpetuate the dysfunctional
family they experienced as children that led to their criminal careers.
This is how the hacks are spending your tax dime, eh Burns?
folks, the inmates our running our criminal justice system.
see
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2001/august22/prison2-822.html
Wow, talk about making up your own reality… What size is your tinfoil hat these days?
Klondike the cop caught again suppressing the truth, eh?
Thirteen Techniques for Truth Suppression
by David Martin
Call the skeptics names like “conspiracy theorist,” “nut,”
“ranter,” “kook,” “crackpot,” and of course, “rumor monger.” You must
then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the people you
have thus maligned.
Change the subject. This technique includes creating and/or reporting a distraction.
Um, let me get this straight.
1. Because you read somewhere that the imates and Corrections officers in Mass. have roughly the same education levels. This correlates that the CO’s are no better than the criminals they are watching.
You seem to be forgetting that the CO’s haven’t committed crimes that warrent them being incarcerated.
You seem to be forgetting that the voting public wants the criminals off the streets, and to be punished by incarceration.
You seem to be missing the obvious. That the staff in the prison and jail system have NOTHING to do with the crimes your seeming pets (the criminals) are commiting.
To blame the prison system for criminals activities is frankly mind numbing.
You don’t have the right to tell me who my pets are.You haven.t earned it.
My analysis of this story is strictly as a primary consumer/voter and taxpayer
and how you perps are running the asylum. As a taxpayer I have every right in the world to comment on the prison system that I own and fund,
Can you imagine a teacher telling a parent to shut up at at PTA meeting?
There is not one person I know who would take their car into a auto shop for brake pad replacement if the shop had a failure rate of 7 out of 10 cars having brake failures after they worked on the brakes.
Yet year after year, decade after decade my tax dime goes to fund these electronic cesspools called prisons that produce nothing more than a more vicious and competent criminal.
This is what Maine taxpayers are spending $35,000.00 a year to keep 1 man in prison?
If this was a auto repair shop in the community it would have been out of business a long time ago,eh? 70% failure rate, eh?
One salient feature of the report done by the Mass Correctional Association
I forgot to mention was the only reason the guards were not in prison is because they never got caught.
An active barometer and psychological profile of you can be found by watching TITICUT FOLLIES the film about Bridgewater prison that was banned in Massachusetts because the guards union threatened the hacks.
see
http://www.egtvonline.com/video/titicut-follies-mental-institution-documentary/
I have every right to tell you that you are wrong when you accuse people you don’t even know of being criminals. With NO proof, NO convictions. You should get yourself a job at one of these facilities you are so eager to slam. Then maybe you could get an understanding of what you speak. You, at this time obviously have none.
Lance Tapley’s articles about Torture at the Maine State Prison
convinced me no to apply for work as a guard. Of course there was earlier articles in the Maine Times about torture being conducted at the Boys Training Center under the watchful eye
of Superintendent Don Allen.
The hacks would go on to confirm Don Allen as Commissioner of Corrections even
though former victims appeared at his confirmation hearings and testified about the torture they received from him.
see
http://www.portlandphoenix.com/features/top/ts_multi/documents/05081722.asp
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=don+allen+maine+torture&oq=don+allen+maine+torture&aq=f&aqi=&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=3845l7092l0l9451l10l10l0l1l0l1l226l1562l0.6.3l9l0
[DOC] the call – Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalitionmaineprisoneradvocacy.org/The_Call__July_2009.docFile Format: Microsoft Word – Quick ViewThe use of isolation as a means of torture and punishment has been ….. LOCK DOWN of 1980 by then State of Maine Corrections Director, Don Allen. …[PDF] MPAC – Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalitionwww.maineprisoneradvocacy.org/CALL_March_10.pdfFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – Quick Viewprolonged solitary confinei’hent was a form of torture. ….. 1980, Director of Corrections Donald Allen led a “Lockdown” of the Thomaston prison and disbanded …
The_Call__July_2009www.docstoc.com/docs/81702806/The_Call__July_2009Jun 14, 2011 – The Maine Prisoners Advocacy Coalition (MPAC) is made up of families and Confinement. … human rights organizations as a form of torture. ….. Commissioner Don Allen, in opposition, stated to the legislative hearing …
Maybe you should have applied…not that you ever would have got the job, but by slim chance you did, you could change the world!
People working in law enforcement.
You can’t help but love them for the entertainment they provide us
2 reads
1st read
PRISON TALK
http://prisontalk.com/forums/
2nd read
http://rt.com/usa/news/planting-utica-car-pocket-215/
Cop caught planting drugs (VIDEO)
: 05 January, 2012, 01:49
Ultica cops in hot water after video of a search went viral
Two cops in Upstate New York are under investigation for allegedly
planting narcotics in the car of a couple pulled over in the city of
Utica.
The incident, which occurred on February 11, 2011, is being
reexamined nearly a year later after the cops involved in the caper have
been caught on tape creating “evidence” and placing narcotics in the
suspects’ automobile.
The recording of the incident, unbeknownst to the officers, was being made by the camera in their own squad car.
The
Utica Phoenix newspaper has come in possession of the recording and has
since uploaded an excerpt of the footage to the Web. In the clip, a
Utica Police Department officer is seen ushering a suspect in handcuffs
away from his vehicle, then approaching the driver-side door, reaching
into his back pocket and pulling out a small baggie. The officer then
crawls into the car, appears to drop the item in question and shortly
thereafter exits the vehicle with the drugs that were allegedly
confiscated from the car.
According to the Venice Ervin of a local
NAACP chapter, the clip clearly shows Officer Paul Paladino, a white
officer, planting evidence in the car of two black suspects.
The
video has gone viral since first posted this week, garnering enough hits
to temporarily cause the Utica Phoenix’s website to go down. The local
Police Department has fired back at the allegations, however, and
insists that Officer Paladino came in contact with the evidence earlier
in the search and had placed it in his pocket for safekeeping.
Maybe we should let all the criminals come live with you? You have no idea what its like to be a prison guard or you wouldn’t be saying that crap. You have got a lot of nerve. I think you need to move to Mass. because this is Maine honey and we don’t operate that way. If someone raped and killed YOUR little girl, it would be a different story!
It would also reduce the convicted felon headcount in Washington County…
Maybe if there aren’t prisoners who provide free labor, that will allow some more law abiding folks to find jobs.
I worked for a company in Portland which used prison labor to replace full time paid employees. Not cool.
Free prison labor is used through out the state to paint and fix municipal buildings and garages. Then you wonder why carpenters and painters can’t get employment in Maine to feed their families.
Maybe they are using the free labor because they can’t afford to actually pay someone?
That would go over real good with the tax payers.
This is easy to figure out.LePage made a promise to his contributor that he will fix it so he will be able to build a private prison in Maine.
Maine can not have private prisons without legislature approval. Ponte has to have legislature approval to close downeast. Nether one of these will happen anytime soon. Angus King claims it costs $96,000 per year, per inmate. They need to look at why it costs so much. Downeast is a dump so their not putting any money there.
If it is a decrepit old rat hole lets over fill it with bath salt and OxyContin criminals. Let them have at it.
It’s worse than that.
We don’t have room for the criminals now – they’re let right back out on the streets. They have to be kidding.