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: In January, CSG Justice Center staff worked internally and with Maine stakeholders to craft specific policy options that will enhance the availability and quality of behavioral health treatment available to people in the criminal justice system. Based on conversations in January and in previous months with staff and leadership from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), CSG Justice Center staff proposed a policy option that directed state funding for local-level programs and initiatives designed to link people with behavioral health conditions and criminal justice system involvement to needed treatment and resources, including law enforcement resources to implement a co-responder model or create local crisis stabilization capacity, improved supportive housing resources, transportation options to link people to treatment, and more. CSG Justice Center staff spoke with staff from the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) about ongoing initiatives to increase the number of supportive housing units in Maine. Other policy options presented to state leaders require improved coordination between the Department of Corrections (DOC) and DHHS to facilitate better in-reach and release planning for people being released from prison who have behavioral health conditions.
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.
Update: In January, CSG Justice Center staff continued to engage with Maine state leaders to craft specific policy options to address the state’s prison population and probation supervision challenges. CSG Justice Center staff met with Chief Justice (Maine Supreme Court), Justice (Maine Supreme Court), and Criminal Process & Specialty Dockets Manager (Maine Administrative Office of the Courts) to review proposed policy options designed to increase the use of probation in Maine and improve the effectiveness of MDOC supervision by providing additional resources both in MDOC and in the community. CSG Justice Center staff also met with the co-chairs of the Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety to discuss the Justice Reinvestment policy options.
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 January, CSG Justice Center staff worked with state leaders in Maine to refine policy options, including a policy option requiring further study of traffic stops in Maine and how current practices may contribute to racial disproportionalities in Maine’s criminal justice system. CSG Justice Center staff spoke with Maine Department of Public Safety (DPS) Commissioner to better understand previous efforts to study this issue and how to ensure that a future study is properly situated and resourced. CSG Justice Center staff also discussed this policy option with the co-chairs of the Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety.
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: In January, CSG Justice Center staff met with staff from the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence (MCEDV) and the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault (MECASA) to review the proposed Justice Reinvestment policy options and solicit feedback and guidance from the organizations. One policy option provides the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) with a full-time staff position to oversee responses to domestic violence among the state’s district attorneys; MCEDV will provide additional guidance and feedback on this policy option. Feedback from the OAG is pending.
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 January, CSG Justice Center staff met with Deputy Director (Maine Pretrial Services) about the proposed policy options, including a key policy option related to the crime of Violation of Conditions of Release (VCR), which accounts for more than 20 percent of all arrests in Maine. CSG Justice Center staff also met with a Defense Attorney representing the Maine Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers who provided feedback on the policy option and helped hone the language. Finally, CSG Justice Center staff discussed the VCR proposal with staff from MCEDV and MECASA.
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o 1/14: Meeting with Deputy Director (Maine Pretrial Services) about the proposed JRI policy options. The Deputy Director provided feedback and direction from the perspective of the state’s primary provider of pretrial supervision services.
o 1/14: Meeting with Chief Justice (Maine Supreme Court), Justice (Maine Supreme Court), and Criminal Process & Specialty Dockets Manager (Maine Administrative Office of the Courts) to review proposed policy options. They each asked astute questions and requested some additional information on the policy options.
o 1/14: Meeting with Executive Director (Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault) to review the JRI policy options. Discussion also included broader policy and political considerations in the 2020 legislative session in Maine.
o 1/14: Meeting with Commissioner (Maine DPS) to review the JRI policy options, including policy options requiring action on the part of DPS to implement a new approach to overseeing grants to local criminal justice entities and a study of traffic stops and racial disproportionality in Maine.
o 1/14: Meeting with Defense Attorney representing the Maine Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to discuss the JRI policy options. They helped hone the language of the VCR-related policy option.
o 1/15: Meeting with Sheriff (Waldo County) to review the proposed JRI policy options. Sheriff provided feedback and guidance from the perspective of the Maine Sheriffs Association.
o 1/15: Meeting with staff and board members of the Restorative Justice Project (RJP) of the Mid-coast in Belfast, Maine. RJP Staff provided information on the group’s operations in four counties in the mid-coast region of the state as well as feedback on the JRI policy proposals.
o 1/15: Meeting with Representative (House Co-chair, Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety) and Senator (Senate Co-chair, Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety) to review the proposed JRI policy options. Rep. and Sen. also requested that CSG Justice Center staff provide a briefing to members of the committee on the work of JRI and how the JRI policy options align with the recommendations of other groups and task forces convened in 2019.
o 1/29: Meeting with Executive Director (NAMI Maine) to review the proposed JRI policy options and solicit feedback and guidance on the options.
o 1/29: Meeting with Director of Strategic Initiatives (Maine DOC) and Senior Policy Advisor (Governor’s Office) to discuss the proposed JRI policy options. Due to time constraints, the meeting was short, and additional conversations with DOC and the governor’s office are needed on the proposed policy options.
o 1/30: Meeting with Legal Counsel (Governor’s Office) to discuss the proposed JRI policy options.
o 1/30: Meeting with Executive Director (MCEDV) and Public Policy Director (MCEDV) to review the proposed JRI policy options and solicit feedback and guidance on the options.
o 1/30: Meeting with Representative (Representative, House District 116) to provide information on the JRI project in Maine and review the proposed JRI policy options.
o 1/30: Meeting with Senator (Senator, Senate District 25 and Senate Co-Chair, Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee) and Policy and Legal Director (Office of the Senate President) to provide an update on the JRI process in Maine and review the proposed JRI policy options.
o 1/31: Meeting with Representative (Representative, House District 40) to review the proposed JRI policy options. Representative was the House co-chair of the Commission to Improve the Sentencing, Supervision, Management and Incarceration of Prisoners, which oversaw the JRI process in Maine until December 2019.
o 1/31: Meeting with Senator (Senate Co-chair, Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety), Representative (House Co-chair, Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety), Policy and Legal Director (Office of the Senate President), and Representative (Representative, House District 40) to review Justice Reinvestment policy options to be presented at the briefing for the Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety scheduled for later in the day.
o 1/31: Briefing for the Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety on the JRI process in Maine and proposed policy options. Discussion also included ways in which the JRI policy options align with the recommendations of other groups and task forces convened in 2019, including the Mental Health Working Group and Pretrial Justice Reform Task Force.
Phone Calls:
• 1/7: Call with Policy and Legal Director (Office of the Senate President) to provide an update on the JRI process in Maine and review the proposed JRI policy options. They provided feedback on the proposed policy options and helpful information on the 2020 legislative session.
• 1/8: Call with staff from the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) about ongoing initiatives seeking to increase the number of supportive housing units in Maine.
• 1/29: Call with Commissioner (Maine DPS) to discuss a number of proposed policy options. Commissioner offered feedback and direction related to the policy option that directs additional resources to local criminal justice entities.
• 1/30: Call with Director of Community Corrections (Maine DOC) to review the proposed JRI policy options and seek guidance on implementation of the options related to probation supervision in Maine.
• WABI TV: Lawmakers discuss potential changes to the state’s criminal justice system (January 31, 2020)
Research Monthly Status:
This month, the research team focused on acquiring and analyzing new data to determine the impacts of proposed JRI policy options.
New Insights:
Offense information is missing or omitted for many admissions to the Maine DOC. This required the research staff to use innovative approaches when determining the impact of proposed policy options on some Class C offenses. To complete the task of estimating proposed policy impacts for presumptive probation, research staff focused on sentencing data from the Administrative Office of the Courts. Because data is identified by docket number and not state identification number, initial estimates of the proposed impacts were too high. Research staff used estimates from the CSG Justice Center’s Confined and Costly report to estimate the impact of proposed technical probation revocation caps.
Research - Monthly Log:
• 1/9: Emailed staff at Maine DOC asking for new probation termination data, new probation sanction grid data, and updated DOC admissions and releases data.
• 1/21: Using DOC admissions data, attempted to flag Class C offenses eligible for presumptive probation according to the policy option presented as part of the Justice Reinvestment policy package. Offense information was missing for a large number of recent admissions, making this task difficult.
• 1/21: Using Administrative Office of the Courts data, flagged Class C offenses eligible for presumptive probation according to the policy option presented as part of the Justice Reinvestment policy package.
• 1/22: Estimated the impact of proposed Class C presumptive probation policies on the DOC prison population.
• 1/24: Estimated the impact of proposed Class C presumptive probation policies on the DOC probation population.
• 1/29: Estimated the impact of proposed technical violator revocation caps on the DOC probation population.
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