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Corrections Department Holding Hearing on Policy Changes

AUGUSTA, Maine — Monday morning the Maine Department of Corrections will hold a public hearing on a series of proposed changes to the prison disciplinary policy that advocates and former inmates say are sweeping in nature and raise First Amendment and other concerns.

The DOC is also considering making changes to the little known prison furlough policy.

Included in the list of proposed rules are several that appear to limit certain types of outside communication, including acting as a reporter, publishing under a byline or blogging, hosting or being a guest on a broadcast, or acting "as an agent of the news media." They also suggest there will be new limits on communicating with pen pals.

"The problem is is what do we mean by reporting?" says Joseph Jackson, a former inmate of the Maine State Prison and the coordinator for the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition known as MPAC. "If a prisoner writes to MPAC and tells MPAC that he witnessed X, Y and Z inside a facility, is that reporting? The second is, most prisoners solicit pen pals. I mean you go in for 20 years or 30 years or life, I mean you're pretty much losing all your contacts with your family anyway and so now they're trying to sever any contact with the outside world whatsoever"

The Department of Corrections has declined to discuss the proposed changes while they are under consideration. But Deputy DOC Commissioner Jody Breton said some of the rules on outside communication have previously been adopted. Still, DOC says these policies and procedures shall be reviewed and revised "as necessary."

One example of this is the little known prison furlough policy. That's a policy that allows prisoners who are within several years of their release dates to leave prison, with permission, for several hours at a time unescorted, usually for family visits.

The Maine DOC had recently proposed to limit furloughs to prisoners who are just 18 months from their release dates, but during an emotional public hearing last month, several people asked that eligibility begin when prisoners are five years from release.

"We should be doing everything, everything we can, to encourage family re-integration," says Jan Collins, the mother of a prisoner who says a strong family connection is one of the most important factors in preventing an inmate from returning to prison after release.

In a small hearing room with a noisy fan in the background, Collins urged the DOC to consider ways to empower prisoners and prevent recidivism.

"Reconnecting with family and support systems through furlough visits within five years of release, including attendance at significant events including, but not limtied to graduations, births, weddings, funerals and major medical emergencies should be included in all prisoners' individual case plans," she says.

Collins, whose father was also an inmate at the Maine State Prison, says she's seen the positive effect family visits have on prisoners and how much hope they bring her son.

"My presence means that he still exists, that someone still cares, that he has not disappeared," she says.

What furloughs do, says Collins, is offer that same hope.

"We're reconsidering maybe making it longer than the 18 months now," says Deputy DOC Commissioner Jody Breton. She says the fulough policy has not been updated since 1998 but that DOC Commissioner Joseph Fitzpatrick has been moved by what he's heard and read.

"Most of the comments were in regards to the time frames and the commissioner's willing to relook at those time frames because the public comment is important to us and we want to make sure that we take all of that into consideration," Breton says.

She says the commissioner has yet to determine what time frame makes the most sense.

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