PORTLAND, Maine — Maine’s governor overruled the opinion of an assistant attorney general in calling for an end to unemployment payments to prisoners, a practice she described as “appalling.”
Maine inmates whose work-release jobs were suspended because of the pandemic were paid nearly $200,000 in unemployment benefits before Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, put the kibosh on the practice.
The Maine Department of Corrections also said it doesn’t intend to expand coronavirus testing beyond the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, where a prisoner fell ill.