An independent consultant has found that "severe and chronic staffing shortages have been toxic to operations at the Long Creek Youth Development Center" in South Portland.
The 29-page report from the Center for Children's Law and Policy says boredom, behavioral management practices and inadequate mental health treatment also contributed to a series of violent incidents at the youth prison in August and September.
Even before the release of the report, Corrections Commissioner Randall Liberty says efforts were underway to improve programming, recruit staff and ensure a therapeutic environment which was made more difficult because of COVID-19 restrictions.
But Joe Jackson of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition says the assessment makes clear that Long Creek is not a supportive setting for youth.
"The lack of staffing, the lack of programming. You know, the overall institutional feel of the environment, those things were glaring to me," he says.
Boredom was listed as one of the main reasons behind the seven incidents reviewed by the Center for Children's Law and Policy or CCLP. They involved altercations between residents and staff after residents threw furniture into windows, assaulted other residents, and destroyed more than $160,000 worth of property.
On one occasion, a tactical team trained to quell prison riots was used to intervene. The center notes that it was the first time the Special Operations Group, or SOG, had been called to Long Creek since 2014. The report recommends the SOG's use be discontinued at the youth facility.
Liberty says he agrees with that goal.
"As we continue to look at ways to keep the youth busy in meaningful ways, to continue programming, I think that the use of SOG or any other tactical methods will diminish and hopefully be eliminated," he says.
During the incidents, after de-escalation strategies failed, staff also used dangerous prone restraints and mace to try to gain control of residents. CCLP calls for the use of both to end.
“Staff should not use the prone restraint, period, and MDOC policy should say so,” investigators said.
The group also recommends development of a secure, psychiatric facility for youth who cannot be adequately treated at Long Creek. And it suggests exploring options to increase the salaries of staff to improve hiring and retention, which Liberty says is a chronic problem.
"Not many jobs do you go to work and have feces thrown on you or you have the threat of being stabbed or bludgeoned or sworn at and that's the reality for many of my officers that endure this sort of challenge," he says.
Liberty says the shortage has resulted in mandatory overtime and staff working 60-hour weeks.
He says employees recently signed a contract that includes a $2000 signing bonus and a six percent pay increase over nine months. They also received a five dollar an hour hazard pay bonus during the pandemic. Those things were helpful, Liberty says, but the DOC continues to look for other ways to improve working conditions.
Jackson says it's the wrong approach.
"I mean I think staff are doing wonderful. I think staff are doing the best they can given the resources they've been given," he says.
Jackson says it doesn't make sense to spend more money recruiting staff on a failed model. Currently, the state spends about $18 million dollars a year on 30 youth confined at Long Creek.
In a joint statement, the ACLU of Maine, Maine Youth Justice, Disability Rights Maine and GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders say the Long Creek report, the third since 2017, is a shameful illustration of why the facility should close.
