According to Sheriff Darrell Crandall, a select group of inmates from the Aroostook County Jail have begun participating in limited labor and community service projects for various municipalities around the region.
The Houlton jail is but one of many county jails that are performing this type of service to local communities around the state.
Crandall explained a letter went out to all of the Aroostook County municipalities on May 3, 2016 advising town officials that this service would be offered. So far, response from those communities has slowly trickled in. The inmates have done clean-up projects in Smyrna, Merrill and Island Falls, with other projects in the works.
“The further away from the jail we have to go, the shorter the work day has to be,” Crandall said. “The furthest request we have received for work so far has been Fort Fairfield.”
The ACSO first did community work projects back in 2005, when the state was providing incentive funding to the sheriff’s office. At that time, a vehicle and trailer was purchased to transport inmates and equipment to work sites.
But when that funding dried up, and the Aroostook County Jail, like every other jail in the state, found itself struggling simply to come up with enough money to maintain core functions, the inmate work program was discontinued.
With overcrowding always being a concern at the Houlton facility, Crandall said he met with the Aroostook County judges about a year ago and spoke on his concerns about inmates sent to jail in lieu of paying fines.
“There is a Maine Statute where in lieu of fines or jail, a person can be assigned to the Sheriff to do work projects,” he said. “So we started exploring that option, which has not yet come to fruition. But I got to the point where I felt this [inmate work] is something we should be doing for a multitude of reasons.”
Crandall said the logistics of making the inmate work program successful was easy. They simply needed to have some inmates who were at the proper security classification. There are several levels of security within the jail.
Only minimum security inmates can be considered for the work program. And since about 79 percent of those incarcerated at the Aroostook County Jail are pre-trial inmates who have yet to be sentenced in court, there is a small pool of inmates Crandall can use for work assignments.
“While it is possible to use pre-trial inmates for work projects, it is much easier to use those who have already been sentenced,” he said. “We found ourselves in a position this spring where we had sufficient resources to kick this off.”
A number of inmates are also assigned to assist in the kitchen preparing meals, since the jail makes in excess of 300 meals a day. Some inmates also work in the laundry department or perform janitorial duties in the jail. There are also two or three inmates assigned to assist on a cooperative work farm nine months of the year.
An example of the types of jobs inmates may be assigned to are, picking up trash from public roadways, sweeping sidewalks, painting fire hydrants and helping with minor construction projects.
Inmates are not allowed to operate machinery or power tools while on assignment. All of the tools needed for the various projects, such as shovels, brooms, paint brushes, must be provided by the municipalities they are working in.
“The obvious benefit is we can help a municipality with a project that they might not have the resources to do,” Crandall said. “There are not people lining up to pick bags and bags of garbage out of a ditch.”
Participation in the program is voluntary for inmates, Crandall said. Only those inmates who have been screened and do not pose any type of threat to the public may be considered.
The work crews are assigned to projects around The County, one day per week, from now until winter. The other six days of the week, many inmates are assigned to work details inside the jail. The workers are under the constant supervision of a Deputy Sheriff while in the field.
Inmates are not compensated financially, but can see a reduction in their sentence. For every two full days they work, one day is removed from their jail sentence.
Crandall said he was exploring grant opportunities so that the service could be offered more frequently, but for now, his office was limited to just one day per week.
“We would love to do more than one day a week, but staffing is the issue,” he said. “We are not in a situation where we can call people in on their days off and pay them overtime to do this.”
