20200728-225650-51

Analysis Area 1: (A) Assess behavioral health (BH) challenges, especially opioid addiction, and their impacts on people in the criminal justice system, including assessing the availability, funding, and oversight of treatment resources; (B) Analyze jail and prison-based programming and treatment, including that related to diversion and reentry.

Background: Behavioral health challenges, especially related to the use of opioids, are particularly pressing in Maine. Between 2012 and 2017, Maine’s drug overdose deaths increased 156 percent, driven by a 278-percent increase in the rate of opioid-related overdose deaths. In 2017, Maine’s drug overdose death rate was the ninth highest in the nation, with many deaths linked to the opioid crisis in the state. Data released in April 2019 indicates that overdose deaths declined slightly in 2018, but the overall rate remains high, and state leaders are determined to address this critical challenge.

Update: On March 17, 2020, the Maine legislature ordered the immediate adjournment of the legislative session due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All bills not directly related to the governor’s omnibus budget or support for COVID-19 were not heard. Beginning then, and through April 2020, there has been discussion about convening a special short session in the summer of 2020, but there is no information at this time about the scope of a potential special session or if LR 3256 would be included. As a result, it is currently unclear what the status of Justice Reinvestment policy options and legislation is or will be in Maine.

Analysis Area 2: (A) Determine primary drivers of prison population growth in Maine, including revocation policy and practice, recidivism monitoring, and time-earning status; (B) evaluate probation policy and practice in Maine so that probation can be maximized as a tool for recidivism reduction and recovery outcomes can be improved for people on supervision.

Background: Between 2015 and 2018, the state’s average daily prison population increased 15 percent, reaching an all-time high of 2,468 people in July 2018. During this period, the female prison population increased 30 percent, far outpacing the growth of the male prison population, which increased 13 percent. This growth has created capacity pressures for DOC, which is operating near capacity and is facing associated challenges (e.g., a lack of programming space in the state’s primary female prison facility due to crowding), especially for the female population. Each year from 2015 to 2018, more than 42 percent of admissions to prison were the result of a probation revocation. Additional case-level data analysis is needed to better understand the dynamics of supervision revocations (including the nature of violations, violation responses and sanctioning by supervision officers, and judicial responses to violation behavior), but many leaders and stakeholders attribute revocations, at least in part, to a lack of necessary community-based programming for mental illnesses, substance addictions, and cognitive behavioral interventions. For people released from prison in 2014, the three-year return-to-custody rate for those released to probation supervision—37.7 percent—was more than 15 percentage points higher than for those who were released without a subsequent term on probation—22 percent. As of April 30, 2020, MDOC reports that no individuals in the custody of MDOC have tested positive for COVID-19, but one staff member at the Bolduc Correctional Facility has tested positive and is engaged in self-quarantine procedures.

Update: In April, MDOC staff worked diligently to produce a once-daily public report of the impact of COVID-19 on the MDOC population accessible on the MDOC website. By April 30, 2020, according to MDOC’s daily COVID-19 update, the institutional correctional population in state prisons has decreased 10 percent (from 2,175 to 1,968 people), and the county jail population has decreased 39 percent (from 1,649 to 1,005 people) in accordance with the COVID-19 protocol for releasing individuals onto community supervision when it is possible and safe to do so. MDOC has posted the criteria for releasing individuals on their public website as well. In April, advocacy organizations called for more aggressive release of individuals from the custody of MDOC than is currently underway. Home confinement is one action MDOC is exploring as an option for release. As of April 17, 2020, MDOC had reviewed 229 people for release to home confinement, and 107 had been rejected.

Analysis Area 3: Study how Maine’s criminal justice system affects people differentially by race, ethnicity, and gender.

Background: As of 2014, the incarceration rate for black people in Maine was nearly six times the incarceration rate for white people. In 2018, black people made up an estimated 1.6 percent of the state’s population but accounted for 11 percent of the prison population. In the same year, Native Americans accounted for an estimated 0.7 percent of Maine’s population but made up 3 percent of the state’s prison population. State leaders are keenly interested in the intersectionality of race and gender dynamics at each key decision point in the criminal justice system, and CSG Justice Center staff are seeking relevant data from state and local agencies in Maine.

Update: In April, CSG Justice Center staff continued discussions with legislative leaders, who reiterated Justice Reinvestment’s proposed prioritization of better and more reliable collection of demographics across Maine’s criminal justice and behavioral health systems to guide policy-making.

Analysis Area 4: Analyze how Maine’s criminal justice system serves victims of crime.

Background: Maine has low rates and amounts of victim compensation, despite increases in violent crime. Half of homicides in Maine arise from intimate partner relationships, and the state needs more access to better-run programs to prevent abusive behavior that often escalates to even more serious crimes.

Update: As options for pathways forward with Justice Reinvestment become, CSG Justice Center staff will, if possible, work with stakeholders to ensure that victims’ issues remain a focus of the Justice Reinvestment process.

Analysis Area 5: Assess pretrial decision-making systems, including the availability and use of diversion programs; analyze indigent defense policy and practice.

Background: Maine’s pretrial release system relies upon non-judicial, non-attorney bail commissioners who collect fees from the people whose bail they are setting. This system has been criticized in recent years as uninformed and outdated. Maine’s indigent defense system relies entirely on private attorneys and has been criticized for placing the case-related interests of indigent defendants in conflict with the financial interests of the attorneys appointed to represent them. Maine leaders are interested in data- and policy-related assessments of these areas of the criminal justice system through Justice Reinvestment.

Update: In April, Maine leadership made significant changes to the pretrial process in response to the novel coronavirus. The Maine Supreme Court dramatically reduced the operating hours for all courts in Maine; fines and fees are all payable online; civil and criminal juries are suspended until at least May 1, 2020, as are grand jury convenings; all hearings are encouraged to be conducted via video; and notably all warrants for failure to pay fines, fees, restitution, or attorney fees were vacated as of March 22, 2020.