The Aroostook County Sheriff’s Office saw a 2.5% decrease in calls for service and conducted fewer arrests in 2025 over the previous year, Sheriff Peter Johnson told county commissioners Wednesday.
Their total calls for service dropped from 7,016 in 2024 to 6,844 last year, and arrests declined by 9%. At the same time, felony cases increased.
The slight decrease in calls, Johnson said, is likely due to staffing increases by local police departments and the Maine State Police, which took call volume away from the Sheriff’s Office.
Johnson’s comments came as he presented the sheriff’s office’s annual report to the commissioners during their regular monthly meeting, held at the Caribou Courthouse.
Deputies responded to 157 fewer calls in the seven Aroostook County towns that have local police departments. In Madawaska, Fort Kent and Fort Fairfield, that total was halved or nearly halved.
The only community with a police department where that metric rose was Houlton, where the sheriff’s office is based — from 386 calls for service to 439.
Deputies arrested 285 people in 2025, including 66 felony arrests.
The office’s major incident response time dropped by nearly 25% compared to 2024, down to 25 minutes and three seconds. It conducted 261 welfare checks and responded to 105 mental health-related calls.
Johnson also discussed the difficulties of maintaining full staffing as law enforcement salaries reach “an all-time high.”
The office is currently down two deputies, both of whom left to join the state police, and has 18 deputies, including four sergeants, on the road.
“Being down two deputies comes with its own struggles, such as burnout, and more difficulty in scheduling time off,” Johnson wrote in the report. “When shortages like this occur, Deputies have less time to [be] more proactive such as attending community-based activities, conducting traffic stops, and visiting local schools and town offices.”
Johnson said his office has an “extremely good working relationship” with the state police, and that “[We] are probably one of the last counties to see this.”
The state police and sheriff’s office collectively cover Aroostook County by call sharing, splitting the vast area into six zones, with each covering three on a rotating basis.
The Aroostook County Jail, which is also under the sheriff’s purview, is almost fully staffed, Johnson said.
The jail has an opening for just one corrections officer, and did not have to pay to board out any inmates to other facilities in 2025.
“Our corrections workforce is not as bad as some counties are facing,” Johnson said.
The jail had an average population of 97.3 last year, which the sheriff said was “ideal.” The building has a capacity of 117, but inmate classification and the need to move individuals around often reduces what it can actually hold.
