Maine officials refuse to answer questions about plan for juvenile justice system

Last year, Maine lawmakers took steps to ensure state government would not ignore chronic problems in the juvenile justice system by passing legislation that requires corrections officials to plan for the system’s future in collaboration with other state agencies.

But in recent months, the Maine Department of Corrections has disclosed few public details about the progress of those plans, refused to answer specific questions about its priorities and made inconsistent comments about the timeline for releasing more information. A lawmaker said that he was aware of private discussions where the department had entertained the possibility of a major renovation to the state’s only youth prison, but corrections officials have declined to provide more information.

The lack of transparency makes it difficult for the public to understand how state leaders are working to address a set of crises in Maine’s system for rehabilitating young offenders.

In March, tumultuous conditions at the state’s only youth prison prompted staff to plead to state officials for help, and leadership at the prison has since changed over. Police chiefs have meanwhile spoken out about having too few tools to support troubled youth in their hometowns while keeping the public safe. Multiple reports have studied problems at Long Creek Youth Development Center and in the community since 2017, but state leaders have not adopted a comprehensive blueprint for solving them.

The Bangor Daily News and The New York Times examined Maine’s struggles to remake its juvenile justice system in an article co-published Feb. 1. In an interview before publication, Maine Department of Corrections Commissioner Randall Liberty said the department was working on a strategic plan to address the system’s long-standing problems, but it would be “premature” to discuss the details.

“I think you’ll find the strategic plan they are working on at the Children’s Cabinet will spell some of that out,” he said. When asked when the plan might be released, he said in one to two months — by the spring. But that never happened.

Nearly a year ago, Gov. Janet Mills signed legislation that requires the Maine Department of Corrections to create a strategic plan in coordination with officials from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that oversees most state services for youth with developmental and behavioral challenges. The corrections department is required to include “detailed information” about the strategic plan in its annual report to lawmakers due each year on Feb. 15.

The two agencies are also required to participate in a “working group” to improve their collaboration under the supervision of the Children’s Cabinet, a government entity that brings state agencies together over children’s issues. The legislation’s only specific instructions to the Children’s Cabinet group are to review the “best practices and organizational structures” for juvenile services in other states. Maine is one of fewer than 10 states where the state agency in charge of adult corrections also oversees juveniles.

The department of corrections did not submit a full strategic plan in its February report to lawmakers but stated that it was in the process of developing one in coordination with the Children’s Cabinet group and health officials.

When the BDN requested an interview with a corrections department official earlier this month to receive an update on the scope and progress of that work, Samuel Prawer, director of government affairs for the agency, declined to make department officials available or provide a written description of the agency’s work.

“By statute the strategic plan DOC is required to develop with DHHS must be included in our department’s upcoming annual report to the Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety, which is due February 15, 2025,” he said in a written response. “That work remains in progress, and we intend to have the strategic plan ready well before our annual report deadline.”

Rep. Michael Brennan, the Portland Democrat who sponsored the legislation requiring the various planning efforts, said his intention was to make sure the state kept up efforts to reduce its reliance on secure detention and to further the work of a juvenile justice task force that he co-chaired with Liberty in 2019. The task force commissioned a major assessment of the system that was published shortly before the coronavirus pandemic interrupted its work.

Brennan acknowledged that the department had dealt with some unexpected changes since he had submitted the legislation — namely that plans to create two new alternative facilities to Long Creek had fallen apart.

“At this point we are looking at a significant repurposing of Long Creek instead of trying to find a separate location or build a separate entity,” Brennan said.

The corrections department has not formally endorsed the idea, but Brennan and other lawmakers had discussed it with state officials of the department, he said.

“We can quibble on the definition of a strategic plan. My expectation and understanding of what they are working on is a full-blown report to the criminal justice committee in February 2025 that may or may not include some of the elements you and I just spoke about,” he said.

Rep. Sue Salisbury, D-Westbrook, who co-chairs the criminal justice committee and whom Brennan said had been party to discussions about repurposing, did not respond to calls and emails to discuss the plans.

Her committee co-chair, Sen. Pinny Beebe-Center, D-Rockland, was unaware of the discussions but said her committee would like to meet with corrections officials this summer “to sit down and create a plan with them” around youth. She was unaware of any ongoing strategic planning efforts, she said.

Prawer said the department was also awaiting feedback from the state’s Juvenile Justice Advisory Group as it develops a plan, although that came as a surprise to Jill Ward, the group’s vice chair. Ward said she was not aware the agency wanted input on a strategic plan.

Ward, who co-chaired the 2019 task force with Brennan and Liberty, has made previous public statements encouraging the state to follow the task force report recommendation to establish an oversight body to guide the vision and progress of implementing juvenile justice reforms across multiple agencies — what the report called a “common feature” of state reform efforts.

So far, the Children’s Cabinet working group has created an inventory of youth-serving government programs across state agencies that will help inform future discussions, said Tony Ronzio, deputy director of strategic communications and public affairs for the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, which oversees the Children’s Cabinet.

Instead of creating a new committee focused solely on juvenile justice, the topic was added as an item on the Children’s Cabinet’s existing staff working group in mid-December. As of late May, the group had met four times and discussed juvenile justice three times, according to written agendas provided to the BDN. Because they are internal staff meetings, the group does not keep public minutes documenting its discussions.

“It is anticipated that input from the staff working group will be incorporated into forthcoming strategic planning outlined in LD 155,” Ronzio said.

The group has not started on the review of other states. The corrections department hired an intern from the University of Maine Fort Kent in October to conduct that research, Prawer said. The student’s work ended in April, and the department is currently reviewing it before handing it over to the working group, he said.