EAST MADISON, Maine — The Somerset County Jail has stopped accepting inmates from other counties because of an ongoing battle with the state about the cost of housing them.
Administrator Maj. David Allen says the jail will continue to swap prisoners with other counties for security reasons and will take federal inmates at $93 a day, but that’s it.
He tells the Kennebec Journal the state system was using bed space at a reduced rate — about $22 per day — while county residents were paying premium rates for their own inmates.
Sheriff Barry DeLong says it costs Somerset County $272 per day to house, feed and pay medical bills for an inmate.
There are now 125 inmates at the Somerset jail, down from about 190 a month or so ago.
Wow cheaper to put them up in a hotel. No wonder hotels charge so much since the jails do
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Most inmates in the county jail system are awaiting trial or are on probation and bail violations. In other words they haven’t been convicted of their current offense. You can’t fix stupid and a lot of these people keep repeating the same stupid acts which bring them back to jail on many occasions.
You hit the nail on the head….
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First of all the jails don’t go out and recruit people to be their guests. The police don’t go out and pick people at random to arrest. In order to become a resident in a jail or prison, you actually have to do something that goes against the law.
Trust me the file systems in every jail in the state (everyone who gets booked has a file) contains 90% are one time arrests. Which translates to 90% of those arrested either learn their lesson or were bailed and not prosecuted. Never to return to jail. Of the remaining 10% I would say that the vast majority of them get it out of their system by the time they are in their mid 20’s. The remaining 2 or 3% just can’t seem to change their lifestyle. And of course you have that .001% that are pure evil, that shouldn’t be on the street.
There is nothing that makes me feel better than seeing one of the people I dealt with in the jail system that has turned their life around and are living full productive lives.
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