Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland, seen in February 2024, is Maine’s only youth prison. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald

Children incarcerated at Long Creek Youth Development Center, Maine’s only youth prison, have more behavioral health needs than most adults in the state’s prison system. But advocates say those children can’t get the help they need while behind bars.

A new proposal would allow police officers to refer children to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services for a “needs assessment,” to determine what medical, educational, social or other services they may require, rather than sending them directly to the corrections and courts system, where their needs are harder to meet.

But some lawmakers and state officials are concerned the bill may overlap with efforts DHHS and the Maine Department of Corrections are already taking in response to the U.S. Department of Justice’s settlement agreement with the state, which required Maine to strengthen community-based services for children with behavioral health disabilities.

Rep. Grayson Lookner, D-Portland, presented the bill, LD 740, to the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee last week.

“What Maine needs is a mechanism to prevent that initial entry into the system altogether,” Lookner said during the public hearing. “Diversion isn’t just about reducing caseloads. It’s about altering trajectories and providing paths to a brighter future.”

Associate Corrections Commissioner Christine Thibeault said the department supports implementing such assessments, but she noted the bill will need some finessing to allow DHHS to be involved. Advocates say it’s possible, and necessary, to amend the bill to address the glaring problems youths face inside the state’s juvenile justice system.

ADDRESSING BEHAVIORAL HEALTH

Advocates have said Maine’s current justice system unfairly punishes children who aren’t getting the services they need. When those children act out and commit a criminal offense, they’re sent to Long Creek.

An annual report issued by the Department of Corrections shows that children at the South Portland facility have high behavioral and mental health needs. Long Creek recorded about 16 mental health watches — where youths deemed to be at risk of self-harm are put under increased supervision — every month. Each child received, on average, 55 therapy sessions during their time in the facility. And 91% of children at the youth prison are prescribed psychotropic medication.

The state has worked to reduce the amount of children referred to the Department of Corrections. Between 2021 and 2024, about 87% of eligible juvenile cases (Class D or E crimes if committed by an adult) were diverted from the juvenile justice system to community-based services. But it’s unclear at what point the cases were diverted — some of the children might have already seen a judge or worked with a corrections officer.

When children are exposed to the justice system through the courts, experts say they’re more likely to return to incarceration in the future.

Norman Hightower, who spoke in support of the bill last week, said he has been in and out of prison for much of his life. He said his first exposure to the justice system was when he was incarcerated in Long Creek at 12 years old. His time at the youth prison was an “entirely different way of living,” he said, and introduced him to violence and rebellion that he had never seen before.

“I believe there’s a strong argument to be made that when we expose children to these types of environments, we are setting them up for failure,” Hightower told the committee. “It was very difficult for me to get back into the world, go to school and live a normal life after having been removed from society and exposed to such harsh conditions.”

Hightower, who now works with the nonprofit Restorative Justice Project Maine, said he’d often see the same people he met at Long Creek as a youth while incarcerated as an adult.

“If these assessments and diversion programs were in place when I was young and got into trouble, things might have turned out differently for me,” Hightower said. “I might have been given the help I needed to live a full and happy life, not a life full of incarceration.”

Jill Ward, director of the University of Maine School of Law’s Center for Youth Policy and Law, also testified in favor of the bill. To avoid overlapping with the current efforts being taken by the departments of Corrections and Health and Human Services, she suggested that the proposal could focus on when children first get involved with law enforcement.

If children are given a needs assessment from DHHS when they come in contact with a police officer for a low-level offense (rather than being sent to the court and corrections system), it will be easier for them to “get back on track,” Ward said in an interview.

Because state officials have expressed that they want more children to be diverted from the juvenile justice system, Ward said this bill is an opportunity for them to have a robust discussion about a solution, especially with Maine’s behavioral health services in the spotlight. That conversation could address how to change existing policies and practices to reach more children, she said.

“Being able to reach more kids, sooner, is something that is appropriately part of the conversation, from my point of view,” Ward said.