AUGUSTA, Maine - The district attorney for Kennebec and Somerset Counties wants tougher penalties for the crime of terrorizing, which is applied in prosecutions of school bomb threats, among other things. Advocates say the change could deter such acts, but critics question that claim.
District Attorney Maeghan Maloney says several bomb threats at Cony High School in Augusta last June prompted her to call for an increase in the penalty for the crime of terrorizing. Right now it's a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.
Maloney says increasing the penalty for simply making the threat will be a deterrent. "Part of the problem right now is that it is seen as a joke, and it is not a laughing matter," she says. "So the hope is that, number one, it would cause people to think twice before doing these actions."
But long-time Criminal Justice Committee member Stan Gerzofsky, a Democratic state senator from Brunswick, has his doubts. He says the Legislature took up the issue several years ago, including a provision that if a school or other public building was evacuated or locked down, the person making the threat could be charged with a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
"We have had bomb threats and we are always going to have bomb threats - you know, kids are going to do what kids are going to do," Gerzofsky says. "I think holding them accountable, the schools holding them accountable, it’s a school issue - schools holding them accountable, with their parents. And that’s one of things we did bring up last time, was getting the parents really involved."
Gerzofsky says the tougher penalty for forced evacuations came in response to school officials' concerns about the huge cost and disruption caused by closing a school as a result of a bomb threat. Connie Brown, executive director of the Maine School Management Association and a former school superintendent, says those costs come in the form of lost teaching time, ruined meals and police searches.
She does not know if a tougher criminal penalty would be a deterrent, but says there are already severe penalties by the school when a student is found to have made a bomb threat. "Whether they understand the consequences of it or if they say, this is, you know. a big joke, that’s tough for me to assess," she says. "But I know once they go through an expulsion hearing they don’t think that way anymore. when their right to attend school has been taken away from them."
DA Maeghan Maloney says she is working with local police and lawmakers to draft legislation to try and bolster penalties for simply making a threat.
