Does Bangor need a new jail?

By Kathleen O’Brien, Bangor Daily News Staff

The question of whether to build an entirely new Penobscot County Jail has been on the minds of the county officials pushing for it and the activists fighting it for years. 

While plans and proposals for a new jail have shifted over time, each iteration has aimed to address overcrowding, the existing building’s biggest and most long-standing problem. Opponents argue it would be an improper use of taxpayer dollars, may lead to more people being incarcerated without improving public safety.

The jail debate is intertwined with how to fight the pressing opioid and homelessness crises in addition to addressing the massive backlog of cases piled up in courts during the pandemic. 

What are the problems at the current jail? 

Built in 1869, the Penobscot County Jail facility at 85 Hammond St. in Bangor was last renovated in 1988 using a $5 million voter-approved bond. The building houses pretrial detainees — which amounts to roughly 80 percent of residents — and sentenced inmates who have a felony sentence of nine months or less, or misdemeanor convictions of fewer than 364 days..

The jail is licensed by the Maine Department of Corrections to house 157 inmates. But in 2022, the average daily population at the jail was 340, according to the Penobscot County sheriff’s website. Some 160 people were housed there, 80 were boarded out to other jails and 100 were monitored through pretrial service programming. 

This year, the county is slated to spend more than $1 million boarding inmates at other facilities, a practice Penobscot County Commissioner Peter Baldacci believes would end with the building of a larger jail. 

“We’re responsible for those people even though they’re sent elsewhere,” Baldacci said. “We should be taking care of those people. Boarding is a short-term Band-Aid.”

Why have previous plans for a new jail failed?

In June 2019, county commissioners asked Bangor-based WBRC Architects and Engineers to design a 250-bed jail estimated to cost $44.8 million. That request came after the county decided a $65 million, 300-bed jail was too expensive. 

In February 2020, Penobscot County officials presented plans to the Bangor City Council for a new eight-story jail on the site of the former YMCA on Hammond Street. The 116,879-square-foot building would have 250 beds and cost between $65 million and $70 million. 

People who live and work around the proposed site, however, worried a large jail downtown would dominate the Bangor skyline and be an eyesore in the face of downtown’s revitalization. 

It would also be impractical and expensive to renovate the existing building because of how extensive the renovations would have to be to meet current code requirements and best practices, Baldacci said. The county would also have to work within the limited footprint of the existing building downtown, further complicating the construction process. 

How is the latest plan for a new jail different?

The county has now shifted its focus away from building a new facility downtown and is instead looking for undeveloped land in Bangor to build a new jail, Baldacci said. 

The building would likely be one or two stories tall with a 250-bed capacity. The jail must meet all current code requirements, follow best practices for incarceration facilities and be built in a way in which additions could be built in the future if needed, Baldacci said. 

County leaders would like to keep it in Bangor, as the city has the sewer, water and other utility systems that can meet the needs of a 250-bed jail. 

No formal designs or cost estimates — which are needed to ask voters to approve funding — have been proposed, Baldacci said. Next June or November is likely the soonest voters would see a request for funding on their ballots. 

Are there alternatives to building a new jail? 

Those vying for a new jail believe more space is needed and a larger facility would allow the jail to adhere to national best practice standards, but local activists argue a new building would be an undue burden on taxpayers without improving public safety. 

While Baldacci said he wants the jail to offer robust diversion programs, Doug Dunbar, a graduate of the Penobscot County Adult Drug Court who was once incarcerated at the jail, takes the idea a step further. He said the county should instead focus its energy and funding on bolstering programs to address mental health, substance use and poverty, which are often the root causes of why people end up incarcerated. 

“It wasn’t until I was talking to people in jail did I realize homelessness, substance use and mental health lead so many people to jail, and it’s what led me to jail,” Dunbar said. 

To combat this, Dunbar said people charged with crimes linked to mental health issues, substance use and poverty should receive treatment rather than be put in a cell. 

“If someone is arrested for something that’s really a mental health, poverty or substance use issue, you don’t really solve those issues,” Larry Dansigner, a Bangor activist, said. “If you cycle people in and out of the jail without addressing mental health, poverty or substance use issues, the problem still exists.”

From his time in jail, Dunbar said sitting in a jail cell only further deteriorates a person’s mental health and strips them of their support system. 

“When you get out, you’ve so often lost your job, housing, pets and belongings, which exacerbates mental health problems,” he said. 

If we incarcerate fewer people, is the new jail still needed?

Maine’s crime rate fell more than 50 percent between 2011 and 2020, and the number of incarcerated people is declining nationally, but Penobscot County “hasn’t enjoyed that downward trend,” Baldacci said. Even if the county doesn’t need 250 beds in the coming years, Baldacci said having the added space would help other jails.

While the state’s crime rate dropped to 13 per 1,000 people in 2020, Maine’s statewide crime rate then jumped to 32 per 1,000 people in 2021, according to reports issued by the Maine Department of Public Safety.

In Penobscot County, the crime rate hovered at 16 per 1,000 people in 2020, the highest crime rate in the state. The county’s crime rate shot to about 40 per 1,000 people the following year — the second highest county crime rate behind Kennebec County.  

The jail’s overcrowding problem is further exacerbated by the backlog of unresolved court cases, which leads to defendants who can’t afford bail to sit in jail “longer than they should,” Baldacci said.

The state would need to hire more judges and clerks to solve that problem. A report released last month found Maine’s court system needs nine additional judges and 40 more clerks to work through the backlog of cases that piled up during the pandemic.

A smaller jail population would allow the existing facility to be used appropriately and meet the county’s needs, Dunbar and Dansinger said. With fewer people, rooms such as classrooms can serve their original intended purpose rather than acting as ad hoc housing. 

“I can’t imagine a more unwise or immoral use of money than building a new jail,” Dunbar said. “The right thing to do is address the root causes of so many arrests. We know what those contributing factors are and we know how to deal with them. But, if we direct millions of dollars to bricks, bars and barbed wire, what have we done?”