Returning the control — and cost — of county jails to Maine’s 16 counties is the easy way out of the mess caused by a failed consolidation effort. But it’s not the right answer.
The attempt to create a single jail system for the state, begun by former Gov. John Baldacci’s administration, failed for a variety of reasons. The most fatal has been a lack of buy-in from jail administrators, county officials, Baldacci’s successor and many lawmakers.
A key piece of the consolidation effort was a new board of corrections. The board, however, was plagued from the beginning by a lack of clarity about is authority and priorities. The Legislature, following the recommendations of a 2013 task force that looked at what worked and what didn’t within the system, passed legislation last May clarifying the board’s powers and duties, giving it real authority over budgets, staffing and standards. Lawmakers had to override a veto by Gov. Paul LePage so the board could get this authority.
By the time the law went into effect, LePage had become so frustrated with the board that he refused to appoint members to it. Without a quorum, the board couldn’t meet or take action, so it has fallen apart. The board’s executive director, and other staff, quit earlier this year.
The governor has long said that he doesn’t care whether the state or counties run the jails. In February, he supported a short-term fix that put Corrections Commissioner Joseph Fitzpatrick in charge of the jails and appropriated an extra $2.5 million for their operation until January.
Then, last week, in a package of changes to his proposed biennial budget, LePage proposed to strip all of the board’s funding and put it toward raises for state prison employees. Short of completely dissolving the board, the move would essentially end any statewide system and return control — and funding problems — to the counties.
The Legislature was already on its way to returning jail authority to the counties. The week before LePage released his corrections funding plan, the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee voted 5-5 on a plan to return jail control to the counties.
The mess of approaches to managing Maine’s county jails highlights an ongoing lack of consensus. Though that lack of consensus seems to be leading the jails back to county control, policymakers shouldn’t give up on a coordinated statewide system. The Board of Corrections needs another chance to succeed.
“Envisioning the county corrections system as more than a confederacy of temporary alliances but as a planned, coordinated system with a more equitable distribution of the cost burdens would be in the best interest of the people of Maine,” the 2013 task force concluded. That was the right goal when the system was envisioned in 2008, when the task force did its review in 2013, and it remains so now.
Returning management of the jails to the counties would further set back state efforts to, one day, move beyond the current questions of jail management and funding to a deliberate focus on improving practices within the jails with an eye toward successful rehabilitation of inmates.
With so much attention paid to money and administrative oversight, needed discussions about who is in jail, how long they should be there or whether they should be there at all continue to be put on hold. A 2010 study by the National Sheriff’s Association and the Treatment Advocacy Center found 16 percent of jail and prison inmates had a serious mental illness. Far too few get needed treatment while they are incarcerated.
A 2010 study by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found that 65 percent of prison and jail inmates were dealing with substance abuse. Only 11 percent received needed treatment.
Maine jails are no different. A coordinated statewide corrections system will ultimately allow jail administrators to focus on best treatment practices — a focus that is long overdue.
Returning control of the state’s jails to the counties merely puts off necessary administrative, funding and programming changes. Lawmakers should continue to do the hard work needed to make the coordinated system work rather than giving up on it.
