SENTENCING

To discuss whether Maine is using its tax dollars wisely in its present corrections system, it is necessary to be familiar with these facts relating to Maine’s seven(7) state prisons.
(There are presently 15 county jails in Maine with a daily in-house population averaging 1,838 inmates. Facts concerning the use of tax dollars for county jails is for a later discussion.)

1. There are seven (7) state prisons in Maine designed to house a total of 1853 prisoners. Three of these prisons were designed to provide for minimum security, two for medium security, and one, at Warren, Maine for maximum security of the inmates housed in the facility.
There are no readily available figures for the cost of construction for the minimum and medium security prisons, although today it would cost Sixty Five Thousand ($65,000) Dollars for each bed in a medium security facility. The cost of construction in the late 1990s and the addition in 2002 to the maximum security prison in Warren, Maine designed to house 922 inmates totaled Seventy Two Million($72,000,000) Dollars, or Seventy Seven thousand Six($77,006) Dollars for each bed.

2. In the past 20 years, the average daily population in Maine’s state prison has grown 74 percent. As of April 2008, 2,222 persons were in state prisons or 369 over the intended total capacity of the prisons.
Of the 2,222, only 762 were imprisoned for what can be characterized as a violent crime. Except for the 42 inmates serving a life sentence, and, possibly, the 141 inmates sentenced to 45 years, the remaining 98% of the inmates will return to community life.

3. During each session of the state Legislature, new crimes are enacted or there is new laws enacted toughening the punishment for existing crimes. For example, in the 2004 legislative session, seven (7) new crimes were enacted and in the 2006 legislative session new laws toughened the punishment for a wide range of existing crimes.

4. In 2001 Maine had the highest annual cost per inmate of any state: Forty Four Thousand Three Hundred Thirty Nine ($44,379) Dollars, as compared to the national state average of Twenty Two Thousand Six Hundred Fifty ($22,650) Dollars, and the average Federal cost of Twenty Two Thousand Six Hundred Thirty Two
($22,632) Dollars. With rising costs the present annual cost per inmate in a state prison in Maine is approximately Sixty Six Thousand ($66,000) Dollars. This is roughly double the state’s per capita income.

If you are not shocked by these figures, you should be!

Why has our state prison population grown? Two nationally recognized reasons: (1) “There isn’t a person in public office that’s not sensitive to the accusation of being soft on crime. But you don’t have to be soft on crime to be smart in dealing with criminals.” Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, The Columbus Dispatch, January 26.2008. This “sensitivity” has been apparent for at least the last 30 years and is also true of persons seeking public office. To avoid “political death” is was deemed necessary to clearly demonstrate that the public office seeker was “tough on crime”: would support longer and harsher sentences for existing offenses and enactment of new crimes. Rehabilitation of a offender was no
longer an important consideration, rather the correction system became viewed as a system solely for punishment of a wrongdoer.
(2) “We are jammed up with this situation now because we have fallen in love with one of the most undocumented beliefs: That somehow you get safer if you put more people in jail”. California Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, Associated Press December 6. 2007.

As stated by Texas State Senator John Whitmore , Chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. on January 21, 2007 ”If we don’t change the course now, we will be building prisons forever and ever --prisons we can’t afford.”

Has and is Maine “being smart” in the use of the taxpayers’ dollars in its dealing with criminals? Do we continue to build more prisons? Should there be a complete reconsideration of what conduct is criminal? Should all criminal violators be imprisoned? Could the tax dollars used for the imprisonment of certain violators be better and more effectively used by keeping them in the community with sufficient supervision and supportive services to allow them to be contributing member of society?
We now have laws mandating that the Court impose a certain minimum sentence for a certain offense, including crimes for which the sentence is a fine, regardless of any other circumstances. Is this not similar to requiring that all stores sell only size 8 shoes so that, as in mandating minimum sentences, we can proclaim that all residents in Maine are treated equally? Is it an equal protection of the laws to remove sentencing discretion from the courts so that the Court can no longer consider real differences in people and circumstances when imposing sentences?

Do you care enough to think about and become involved in discussions for changes to our present penal system so that we are really “being smart” in the use of our tax dollars?

E-mail this entry to a friend