BANGOR, Maine — For crowded county jails in Maine, any program that can safely and cost-effectively reduce the number of inmates is worth a look. At the Penobscot County Jail in Bangor, certain offenders who have a hard time paying their fines are being given an option to do community service work instead.
While less than a third of those that have started the ReFinement program have completed it, advocates believe that it's been a success.
On average there are 176 inmates in the Penobscot County Jail, and they cost the county nearly $8 million a year to house. So Sheriff Troy Morton says a program that reduces the number of inmates, even those being held for a short time for failure to appear in court, has his support.
"It's a win-win for the courts, a win-win the county jails and then certainly for those that have these significantly high fines," he says.
The ReFinement program is only an option for those convicted of misdemeanor offenses not related to drugs. Sex offenders are also excluded. A judge who determines that the offender is not able to pay his or her fine could allow the fine be worked off through public service work with a nonprofit.
Brandee Trask coordinates the ReFinement program in Penobscot County and says it is often difficult for those in the program to carry through with their commitment because of job and family obligations, or health issues. On the other hand, she says, some participants in the program have developed productive relationships with nonprofits.
"I have had a couple people that have been offered jobs from their community service site because they have done such a good job," she says. "So it makes them feel they are still worthwhile."
Trask says on average, the fines that participants have been assessed are around $1,500. That means that at a rate of $10 an hour, it takes about 150 hours of work to pay off.
Jason Ludden of Bangor, a successful participant in the ReFinement program, says that it hasn't been easy.
"I'm a college student, I am disabled and I just don't have the money to be paying them every month," he says. "And the process also of paying them back is very slow, you are talking about being in the system for years and years and years for a $1,000 fine."
Ludden says when he hasn't been able to make a payment on a fine, he's had to take time from school or work to go before a judge and explain why he can't. If he doesn't appear, it's likely he will face arrest.
In fact, the chief judge of the District Court, Charles LaVerdiere, says judges don't issue arrest warrants for failure to pay a fine, but for failure to appear in court to explain their situation.
"We don't know if it's because they are unable to pay off, if they are just thumbing their nose at the legal system, so we issue a warrant for their arrest," he says.
LaVerdiere says while community service is an option he would like to see available throughout the state, he acknowledges that the program requires adequate staffing to do the proper monitoring.
"Any community service option that we look for has to be one where there is true accountability and we need to make sure people are actually doing the community service they are assigned," he says.
But Robert Ruffner, director of the Maine Indigent Defense Center, says the Penobscot County program model should be expanded across the state, to provide an option for Mainers who are struggling to make ends meet.
"You would be hard pressed to find any rich people in jail for failure to pay a fine, or getting even arrested for failing to appear to pay a fine," he says. "And a lot of those individuals, in addition to having difficulty coming up with the actual money, they have difficulty managing their lives, period."
Ruffner says the some of the costs placed on the counties to properly run such programs could be found in savings from the reduced number of inmates in the jails.
