Aroostook County, in Maine’s far north, is the biggest county east of the Mississippi, a sparsely populated area of fields and forests with simply two small cities and about 50 smaller cities. Police chiefs describe their jurisdictions as sleepy, with little critical crime.
Even so, the county has despatched a disproportionate variety of adolescents in recent times to the state’s solely youth jail.
Between 2017 and 2023, there have been 20 commitments to Lengthy Creek Youth Improvement Middle from Aroostook — practically double the quantity from York County, which has greater than thrice as many residents on the different finish of the state.
Aroostook was additionally an outlier for utilizing brief jail phrases, often known as “shock” sentences, to punish younger offenders, handing them down at a number of the highest charges statewide earlier than the follow started to wane.
York County, which incorporates rich coastal communities and former mill cities that assist make up Maine’s largest metropolitan space, hardly ever imposed such sentences.
For greater than a decade, Maine has emphasised rehabilitation in its strategy to juvenile justice, sending fewer youngsters to jail. The change is consistent with a nationwide motion to consign fewer youth to the felony justice system, particularly correctional settings, which a rising physique of analysis reveals can typically do extra hurt than good at stopping delinquency.
However the variations between Aroostook and York Counties present that the effort has performed out erratically, leading to justice by geography. The disparity seems to stem from philosophical variations over the suitable response to youngsters who get in bother, the various availability of providers throughout the state and the unequal distribution of attorneys and caseloads, in response to interviews with protection attorneys, regulation enforcement officers and former corrections officers.
York stood out even past its low dedication fee. Adolescents there have been far much less more likely to find yourself with a felony file than anyplace aside from neighboring Cumberland County, in accordance to an information evaluation by The New York Instances and The Bangor Every day Information. Between 2017 and 2022, these counties lowered 93 p.c of felony circumstances that resulted in a responsible plea to misdemeanors. On the low finish, two central Maine counties lowered them solely about half the time; in Aroostook, that fee was 64 p.c.
William Francis, a juvenile group corrections officer in Aroostook for greater than 30 years, stated his supervisors on the Maine Division of Corrections had been involved in regards to the dedication charges in his county and used to inform him that practices ought to be the identical in every single place. “‘What occurs in Aroostook ought to be what occurs in York,’” he repeated in an interview. Given the variables in every location, he recalled considering, “Be actual.”
However such variations are troubling to many concerned within the juvenile system. “Justice shouldn’t be outlined by the place within the state a baby lives,” stated Sarah Department, a former juvenile prosecutor who’s now a protection lawyer and director of the Youth Justice Clinic on the College of Maine Faculty of Regulation. “What we’ve proper now are obstacles for some kids that don’t exist for others.”
The system wants higher oversight to make sure constant, efficient outcomes, in response to juvenile regulation and coverage specialists in addition to a 2020 state-commissioned evaluation.
Prosecutors and protection attorneys typically can’t evaluate outcomes for related offenses throughout jurisdictions, leaving them to depend on anecdotal data. Whereas the Corrections Division publishes common statistics on-line about Lengthy Creek admissions and juvenile felony referrals from police businesses, it may be tough to acquire extra granular data as a result of a lot of it’s confidential or isn’t collected in codecs which are straightforward to research. And the state courtroom system, which is paper-based, is constrained by its restricted digital knowledge.
No impartial entity holds the system accountable for measuring and bettering outcomes, stated Jill Ward, who leads the Middle for Youth Coverage and Regulation on the college. In contrast to the opposite New England states, Maine doesn’t have an ombudsman who can examine confidential circumstances, analyze knowledge and subject public experiences about successes and failures.
The 2020 evaluation beneficial that state officers develop a plan to deal with a spread of issues, together with geographic inequities. However that by no means occurred. Ms. Ward, who helped lead the duty drive that produced the report, known as that “a missed alternative.”
Ben Goodman, a spokesman for Gov. Janet Mills, didn’t deal with the oversight points within the system however described a dedication to diversion applications all through the state. “The administration acknowledges there’s extra work to do,” he stated, citing challenges together with “the issue of the work” and staffing shortfalls.
In an announcement, the Corrections Division stated it had a restricted skill to regulate for disparities within the juvenile system as a result of “varied actors” — police, prosecutors, judges — affect circumstances.
Samuel W. Prawer, the division’s director of presidency affairs, stated his company had made “vital efforts” to put money into psychological well being and mentorship applications for youth, and acknowledged that these had been wanted in each a part of the state. However such efforts “depend on acceptable funding,” he stated.
“Whereas we should not have management over the judicial system’s selections, we are going to proceed to do our greatest inside our finances assets to develop entry to group and home-based providers and help diversion away from incarceration the place deemed acceptable,” Mr. Prawer stated.
Justice by geography isn’t distinctive to Maine. Throughout the US, the idiosyncrasies of native courts have an effect on case outcomes, and variation is very possible within the juvenile system with its emphasis on individualized remedy. Final 12 months, a nonprofit advocacy group in Massachusetts recognized wide-ranging variations relying on which police division, district legal professional and courtroom dealt with a case. Equally, a 2005 research of Missouri’s juvenile system discovered that youngsters’ odds of confinement modified with the place they lived.
Most juvenile crime in Maine entails misdemeanors like assault, theft and property destruction. However the charges at which adolescents pleaded or had been discovered responsible various broadly, in response to the Instances/BDN evaluation. York County had the bottom fee, at 14 p.c, whereas Aroostook had the very best, at practically 60 p.c.
In Aroostook, a 16-year-old killed an older man throughout a drug-related theft in 2015, considered one of eight murders by minors within the state since 2010, however native regulation enforcement officers stated in interviews that critical juvenile crime was uncommon.
“Main conditions? Like down south?” stated Michael DeLena, the police chief in Fort Kent, a city of about 2,500 alongside the Canadian border. “We don’t see that. It’s extra small issues.” The circumstances he thought-about most worrisome concerned repeat offenders, usually charged with theft, property destruction, drunken driving or preventing.
Tanya Pierson, a longtime juvenile prosecutor with the York County District Legal professional’s Workplace, stated her colleagues did deal with extra critical crimes, together with these dedicated with weapons, corresponding to theft, a taking pictures and making a risk with a firearm.
That’s true in neighboring southern counties as properly. Police in Lewiston, the state’s second-largest metropolis, have responded to a number of shootings in recent times the place youth had been charged. Final month, Portland cops arrested two teenage boys accused of robbing a girl at knifepoint whereas she sat in her parked automobile. And three 17-year-olds had been lately despatched to Lengthy Creek after a rolling gunfight in Portland; police stated they and different youngsters had been concerned in a cocaine-trafficking ring.
Mr. Francis, who retired in 2021, primarily coated northern Aroostook throughout his time as a group corrections officer. He was identified for his “tough-love” strategy, and towards the top of his profession, he stated, he butted heads along with his supervisors over the division’s shifting insurance policies, particularly regarding commitments.
Throughout that interval, the state took a extra progressive strategy and labored to cut back youth incarceration. However the push to decrease commitments additionally got here from mounting public strain after Lengthy Creek, situated in South Portland, had develop into mired in controversy following a teen suicide, continual workers shortages, riots and a vote by lawmakers to close the jail down, which Ms. Mills vetoed.
Since then, the administration has been faulted for not adopting a complete plan to fill extreme gaps in group providers statewide for troubled youth, develop various safe websites to Lengthy Creek and stabilize the jail. Tumult on the web site has continued, with a number of main disturbances since November, and on Friday, it was introduced that the jail’s superintendent of two years was stepping down for unspecified private causes.
Whereas the variety of adolescents from Aroostook despatched to Lengthy Creek has fallen for the reason that starting of the pandemic, which considerably drove down the jail’s inhabitants, the county nonetheless had the very best fee of commitments in Maine from 2017 to 2023, in response to the Instances/BDN evaluation of knowledge offered by the Corrections Division. The county additionally recorded 26 shock sentences, the identical as Cumberland County, which is the state’s largest and has the very best quantity of juvenile circumstances. (Different counties stood out for prime charges of shock sentences, together with Androscoggin, residence to Lewiston, and rural Somerset in central Maine.)
District Legal professional Todd Collins stated sentences to Lengthy Creek from Aroostook in recent times normally resulted from a number of probation violations that couldn’t be resolved out of courtroom. “The specter of jail is to encourage the kid,” he stated in an interview.
A few of the underlying crimes concerned theft, assault, stealing a automobile, drug possession, trespassing and making a risk, in a single case with a weapon. In a number of critical circumstances, corresponding to one involving rape, he stated his workplace considered dedication to Lengthy Creek as a extra rehabilitative various to charging the teenager in grownup courtroom.
Mr. Francis, who’s a former police officer and member of the Maine Military Nationwide Guard, recalled that a number of years in the past, his bosses instructed him that they had been involved that Aroostook County was an outlier for its excessive dedication numbers and urged him to search out extra inventive methods to help youth in the neighborhood.
“I obtained known as on the carpet greater than as soon as,” Mr. Francis stated.
Corrections officers discouraged his use of extra conventional regulation enforcement instruments, corresponding to drug testing, he stated, which may determine probation violations and result in incarceration. He refused to refer adolescents to a restorative justice program — a diversion effort that may make offenders confront the hurt they precipitated — as a result of he was skeptical of its worth. He felt strongly about following by means of with penalties if youngsters violated probation, he added, worrying {that a} lack of motion would enhance their possibilities of ending up within the a lot harsher grownup felony justice system.
For instance, he recalled, a boy on probation was despatched to Lengthy Creek after stealing 1000’s of {dollars} from his household’s enterprise. In different circumstances, like commitments involving sexual assault, there have been issues about folks’s security. “Keep in mind the victims,” he stated.
“Incarceration was at all times a final resort,” Mr. Francis stated, agreeing along with his supervisors on that aim, if not completely on the philosophy behind it. “Punishment works. It’s develop into a foul phrase.”
And typically, he stated, a dedication may save a life. He described the case of a younger heroin addict who stored violating her probation by utilizing and promoting medicine. Nervous she may die, he pushed to ship her to Lengthy Creek, the one locked facility out there. She later thanked him, he stated.
Mr. Francis was considered one of 4 group corrections officers working in Aroostook. It’s not clear how a lot his views contributed to the county’s comparatively excessive dedication fee. Whereas he made suggestions to prosecutors and judges, they had been the final word choice makers.
The decide who most frequently oversaw his circumstances had extra liberal views. In an interview, David Soucy, who presided over District Courtroom in northern Aroostook for 11 years till retiring in 2021, known as incarceration and punitive approaches to delinquency “wasteful and ineffective and actually merciless.”
The commitments he ordered, he stated, “at all times needed to do with both an absence of obtainable assets or a safe residence for individuals who had been significantly uncontrolled.” Generally “it was a matter of preservation — to maintain them alive,” he stated.
Mr. Soucy lamented what many cops, prosecutors, households and advocates have additionally identified: The state’s strain to maintain adolescents out of Lengthy Creek has not coincided with an equally forceful effort to construct up rehabilitation applications of their communities or intervention efforts that would cut back their danger of coming into the justice system within the first place.
For example, Aroostook County, one of many state’s poorest, as soon as had at the least three group properties for youngsters who wanted supervision, Mr. Soucy stated, however now it has none. In the course of the pandemic, the county’s final residential remedy facility for youngsters closed and reopened as a youth homeless shelter and transitional residing program, addressing a rising want however not filling the hole for many who require extra care.
It’s tough to search out therapists within the county, which is considered one of solely two with out an intensive in-home behavioral well being program aimed toward maintaining youth out of the justice system; it’s laborious to scale a expensive service over such a big space. Many younger offenders even have drug issues, however the state’s solely residential program is way away, near Portland, with few slots. A scarcity of public transportation in most rural counties additional limits entry to well being providers in addition to training and work alternatives.
Even for commitments, Mr. Soucy had no alternative. The state used to function a second youth jail in Penobscot County, which borders Aroostook, nevertheless it stopped holding minors in 2015. For some time, the previous decide stated, he at the least hoped that troubled youth would get assist at Lengthy Creek, however he turned disillusioned after experiences about its deteriorating circumstances.
He tried to not let the state’s concern about Aroostook’s dedication numbers affect his selections from the bench, he stated, warning that disparities in a system with comparatively small numbers might be insignificant or deceptive. “It’s a determined state of affairs,” Mr. Soucy stated. “You both did nothing, or this draconian various of incarceration away from residence in southern Maine.”
The counties within the south of the state — little greater than an hour from Boston — have extra juvenile circumstances, permitting for extra specialization in juvenile regulation amongst protection attorneys, prosecutors and judges, which may have an effect on how circumstances are resolved.
For example, Ms. Pierson, the York County prosecutor, and Michelle McCulloch, a veteran juvenile prosecutor in Cumberland County, each stated their workplaces had been extremely motivated to cut back felonies as a part of plea offers. Youngsters who’ve been discovered responsible of a felony — which turns into public file — might need to disclose that on functions for college, jobs or skilled licenses, and it usually bars them from enlisting within the navy, Ms. Pierson stated.
“If our aim is rehabilitation and for them to develop into a productive member of society, that’s one of the simplest ways to do it: by means of training, having a job the place they will help themselves,” she stated. As a prosecutor, she should shield public security and contemplate enter from victims, she stated, however added that she and a few of her colleagues considered dedication to Lengthy Creek as a failure of earlier interventions and options to jail.
Extra rural courts, nevertheless, see as few as a dozen juvenile circumstances a 12 months. And whereas there usually are not practically sufficient attorneys to symbolize poor defendants in Maine, the issue is acute in rural areas. Final 12 months, the state created a particular crew of public defenders to fight the scarcity in Aroostook, Penobscot and Washington Counties.
Sharon Craig, a protection lawyer who represents youth at Lengthy Creek, recalled being assigned a consumer from Penobscot, the place she doesn’t usually follow. She was stunned that the boy had been dedicated for nonviolent offenses that may not normally warrant such a penalty in southern Maine courts. He was additionally younger, solely 13, she stated.
A month after he arrived, she stated, workers members at Lengthy Creek took steps to switch him to a residential remedy facility.
Justin Mayo and Irene Casado Sanchez contributed reporting. Julie Tate contributed analysis.
This text was reported in partnership with Massive Native Information at Stanford College.