Someone will be killed if nothing is done, one lawmaker says.
AUGUSTA – A bill that would let some violent convicts out of jail earlier to create needed space in Maine’s packed prison system received a strong legislative endorsement Thursday.

“If you derail this bill, I don’t know where we’re going with our state prison,” Rep. Patricia Blanchette, D-Bangor, warned before the House voted 102-39 in favor of the measure.

“Murder is going to happen and it will happen very, very quickly if we do nothing to alleviate the overcrowding,” Blanchette told representatives.

But another Bangor Democrat, Rep. Sean Faircloth, made an emotional plea to lawmakers to scuttle the legislation, saying it violates the spirit of Maine’s “truth in sentencing” law that guards against early release of criminals.

The bill would ease probation and increase chances of early release for good behavior in prison for some violent offenders and those who sell drugs to children, and ease probation requirements for child molesters, said Faircloth.

Passage of the bill in the House, he said, “betrayed” victims of violent crimes.

The lengthy, 54-page bill stems from special commissions that studied prison overcrowding and Maine’s sex offender laws.

At the prison, three inmates are packed into some cells designed for one and violence is an ever-increasing threat, said Blanchette, a member of the Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety, which unanimously endorsed the bill.

Referring to a lockdown in the former state prison at Thomaston more than two decades ago, Blanchette warned, “I can almost guarantee you, you are going to have another one very, very soon.”

The Thomaston compound has been replaced by a new prison in neighboring Warren.

The bill before lawmakers would increase time off for good behavior, or “good time,” to nine days per month, an increase of four. It would not apply to those serving time for murder, sex crimes or domestic violence.

It would lower maximum probation for a number of felonies but increase it for sex crimes, and eliminate probation for most misdemeanors. The measure also calls for more alternative sentences to keep offenders from taking up room in the jails.

Rep. Janet Mills, D-Farmington, said during the debate that the bill “is not soft on crime. It is tough on crime in many respects.”

For those who commit sex crimes against children under 12, for example, it would lengthen possible prison sentences.

The bill does not apply to those already serving time, but only to those convicted of crimes that take place after August 2004.

Supporters also said the Legislature needs to act because Maine voters have shown an unwillingness to borrow money for prison construction and expansion. Mills said she counted four failed prison bond issues in the last dozen years.

The bill faced further votes.

AP-ES-04-08-04 1623EDT