In Maine’s correctional system, overcrowding has left jailers no freer than the jailed.

Though identified as a problem years ago, cellblocks statewide still brim over. Jail administrators are forced to maximize every inch of their cramped facilities, while dealing with serial recidivists who ebb and flow through the corrections system like the tide.

Warehousing prisoners out-of-state or building a new prison/jail in Machias have been proposed in response. Augusta whispers also indicate the state may execute a takeover of county jails, to streamline management and find efficiencies, which is a more meritorious idea.

Few institutions are immune from overcrowding. Large jails in York County and the shared Two Bridges jail for Lincoln and Sagadahoc counties, for example, are thriving. Though the newish prison in Warren did reach its 2010 population years ago, it isn’t yet overcrowded…but it’s getting there.

Prior overcrowding solutions have fizzled. In 2004, the state’s 17-member “Commission to Improve Sentencing, Supervision, Management, and Incarceration of Prisoners” endorsed weak financial incentives for jails to invest in sentencing alternatives, as part of 61 recommendations to relieve corrections overcrowding.

It hasn’t worked yet. Jails remain full, while lawmakers have enacted more tough-on-crime legislation that swells inmate populations – such as harsh crackdowns on driving scofflaws – in the interim.

Popular sentiment on lawbreakers is always more Alcatrazian than altruistic. The cost of this sentiment, however, is taxpayer millions to house inmates and maintain, modernize and eventually build larger facilities.

Throwing more dollars at overcrowding doesn’t make sense. If policies are blamed for aiding overcrowding, as studies suggest, policies should help reduce it, not greater investments into new and old infrastructure.

This, however, means again entrusting state policymakers with managing this task, which raises two key questions:

Why is Maine still looking, after years of overcrowding and investigation, for alternatives to incarceration? And how long can overcrowding persist without an inevitable crisis?

The sentencing commission’s detailed 128-page study already says the pressurized environment of crowded jails can escalate incidents of violence, and increase chances of prisoner riot (a 2001 riot in York County was incited by overcrowding) or suicides. These costs beyond taxpayer dollars deserve strong attention by lawmakers.

Maine is far from alone with jailing woes, but does have freedoms within its penal system that are the envy of other states. (Maine’s incarceration rate -144/100,000 people – is lowest in the nation, according to a recent Pew study.)

Yet cells remain packed. Freeing Maine’s jails from these shackles requires aggressive action. We’ve seen the half-measures, like the fiscal incentives. Bold solutions, like state takeover of jails, are now warranted.

Jail and prison overcrowding, it seems, isn’t going away without a fight.

Lawmakers need to start one.