Staff Writer
HOULTON — The expense of making a defendant pay for their crime has increased the county and state’s costs dramatically. That’s where LD 1938 comes into play.
On May 20, an “Act To Allow Community Service in Lieu of Fines” reached its final legislative hurdle and received the governor’s signature for final approval. Advocates say this law, which was sponsored by Rep. Richard Cleary D-Houlton, will benefit the courts, jail systems and the public.
“Say a defendant is charged with assault, and convicted of that, typically he might get a sentence of three days in jail and a $500 fine,” explained Cleary. “So that initial sentence, they would do the three days in jail and then the issue is payment of the fine. So they get out of jail and they don’t pay their fine.”
The courts’ present remedy is to bring them back to the court repeatedly and ask, “Why haven’t you paid?” After a while, they may run out of excuses and the courts may not have any more patience then the remedy is to sit out the fine in jail at $5 a day. Cleary says that remedy is where the real costs are incurred.
“So if we have a $500 fine, that’s 100 days, which is about $70 (per day for housing) and that’s $7,000 to sit off the fine and the state’s not going to receive it anyway. So, instead of sitting in jail costing us money, they’ll be doing something positive.”
That positive will be a result of community services. The Criminal Justice Committee reviewed and changed little with LD 1938 and agreed that the community services in lieu of fines would be more practical and efficient on both levels of government.
“The community service would be for non-profits like churches or soup kitchens,” said Cleary. “It could be for the town. As long as it’s for a non-profit, municipal or just out around cleaning up garbage. In theory it will be a more efficient process, and save the county some money as far as the jail costs.”
Cleary said the community service part wouldn’t be so burdensome because the court would tell defendants to go out and do 40 hours and then the defendant has to go out and obtain community service work that’s non-profit. Once they do the hours, whoever they did it for will sign a sheet saying “defendant A has completed 40 hours of community service.”
“The defendant then turns that over to the court, so it doesn’t burden the court with any administrative duties,” explained Cleary. “This law will go a long way to create more efficiency in Maine sentencing and will save the state some money.”
Cleary worked with District Court Judge Bernard O’Mara and Superior Court Justice E. Allen Hunter in drafting the legislation.
