State police say driver fatigue and inattention are to blame for a multi-vehicle crash that shut down a stretch of the Maine Turnpike southbound on Friday night.

Shortly after 6 p.m. Friday, a man driving a U-Haul caused a serious chain reaction crash in Scarborough that shut down all three southbound lanes of the Maine Turnpike for 3 1/2 hours.

State police said traffic was already congested in the area due to other crashes when the U-Haul, driven by 59-year-old Jason McAvoy, of Old Orchard Beach, collided with a tanker truck. The force of that collision propelled the tanker forward, striking a Subaru. This caused a chain reaction, resulting in the Subaru rear-ending a Dodge Ram,

When troopers arrived, they found McAvoy trapped inside the U-Haul. Several area fire departments and towing companies helped remove him from the vehicle, and he was taken to Maine Medical Center in Portland while the other drivers received treatment at the scene. McAvoy suffered broken bones but is expected to survive.

Following an investigation, state police said they determined that driver fatigue and inattention are the main contributing factors to the crash. State police said the case will be submitted to the York County District Attorney’s Office for review of any potential charges.

Stories of violence, understaffing and dysfunction at Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland have spilled into the public eye for years now.

But over the past year, the Bangor Daily News chronicled the sprawling problems in Maine’s juvenile justice system that reach beyond the walls of its only youth prison, seeking to answer some of the most urgent questions that matter to families, youth and their communities.

For example, what has been the impact of reducing Long Creek’s population without making comparable strides to expand community-based programs? Who are the young people involved in the juvenile justice system, and what are their lives like?

Some of the most important stories illustrate Maine’s broader struggle to protect and support its most troubled, vulnerable kids while keeping the public safe. They also shine a light on those trying to help.

Sprawling problems with no clear plan to address them

In February, the BDN examined, in partnership with The New York Times, how little progress state officials had made to fix a shortage of intervention programs for adolescents in the juvenile justice system while the state had continued to divert as many kids from Long Creek as possible.

Law enforcement, parents, advocates and teenagers described the dire consequences of how Maine’s all-or-nothing system of juvenile justice offered limited help to kids who were spiraling out of control but not considered dangerous enough for Long Creek. For example, some families and police officers felt as though they had nowhere to bring a child in the throes of a dangerous episode but the local emergency department, transforming hospitals into “new forms of detention.”

State leaders, meanwhile, had failed to come up with a comprehensive plan for solving that crisis, despite years of state commissioned reports, task forces, legislative efforts and advocacy that urged leaders to overhaul the juvenile system.

Geographic disparities 

A first-of-its kind analysis conducted by the BDN, The New York Times and Stanford University’s Big Local News found that adolescents face harsher outcomes in the juvenile justice system depending on where they live across Maine’s vast geography. The examination of corrections and prosecutorial data showed that Aroostook County committed nearly twice as many adolescents to Long Creek over a five-year period than the more populous York County.

The disparity appeared to stem from philosophical differences over the appropriate response to teenagers who got in trouble, the varying availability of services across the state, and the unequal distribution of lawyers and caseloads, according to interviews with defense lawyers, law enforcement officials and former corrections officials.

One retired district county judge from Fort Kent lamented that the commitments he ordered “always had to do with either a lack of available resources or a secure home for people who were seriously out of control.” In some cases, “it was a matter of preservation — to keep them alive,” he said.

The crisis through one boy’s coming of age

The BDN stayed in touch with 17-year-old Austin during his final year as a teenager to give readers a close-up look at one boy’s life in the juvenile justice system.

His story, published Oct. 2, illustrated the constellation of traumas, unmet needs and struggling governmental systems that so often pave the way for kids into the juvenile justice system and Long Creek. That was true even for a teenager like Austin who encountered more than one adult who tried to help him beat the odds.

Signs of hope on the local level

In late 2022, the city of Rockland became known for problems in the juvenile justice system after its police chief publicly criticized the state for providing insufficient services to support troubled teens in the community. The department felt unable to handle a spike in juvenile crime, often involving the same kids over and over again.

But then over two years, community members in the midcoast banded together around a local strategy for supporting kids and teenagers, with a major emphasis on preventing them from getting into trouble in the first place.

Reported in real time over the course of a year, the BDN documented how local police officers, nurses, educators and social workers nurtured experimental ideas into full-blown, grassroots organizations and major federal grants — and how that work could only go so far without greater support.

“I can only work 100 hours a week for so much longer,” one educator leading the work said.

Long Creek had another hard year

Chronic short-staffing and limited programming has brought waves of unrest to Long Creek over the years, including this past winter. During one tumultuous night in January, the BDN reported that a group of boys broke out of the prison — an episode that came days before staff at the prison sent a letter to state corrections officials pleading for help and describing the facility as in crisis. Months later, in July, two boys escaped by jumping from the prison’s roof.

Federal lawsuit brought hope for long-awaited change

The state of Maine and the federal government reached a court-supervised settlement agreement last month to expand children’s mental health services.

The U.S. Department of Justice had sued Maine in September over a pattern of unnecessarily institutionalizing children with behavioral health challenges, including at Long Creek, due to the state’s shortage of community-based services.

The terms of the settlement “will mean more kids who will be able to stay at home and in their communities, more children who will be moved out of detention facilities, and more children who will be less likely to get trapped in the juvenile justice system,” said Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, in an interview with the BDN following the announcement.

Advocates expressed cautious optimism over the decision, knowing it could take years to see changes.

Reporter Callie Ferguson may be reached at cferguson@bangordailynews.com.

This is part one of a two-part series in honor of Human Trafficking Awareness Month. 

What industries run Maine’s economy? The farmlands full of blueberries and potatoes, the seafood processing centers on our coasts, or the hospitality services that accommodate visitors all year round? 

Those are only some of the many employment fields in the state, and across the country, where people are subjected to labor trafficking.  

What is it? 

Labor trafficking is using fraud, force, or coercion to secure involuntary labor. Many who end up in environments where their labor is being exploited can’t leave due to external factors, such as poverty, lack of housing, and unstable immigration status, among other things, according to Hailey Virusso, director of anti-trafficking services at Portland’s Preble Street.  

The key distinction is the use of coercion within the job environment to keep people from leaving. According to the United Nations’ International Labour Organization, an estimated 27.6 million people were trafficked worldwide in 2021, 77% of whom were victims of forced labor. 

There are no such statistics for Maine, which Virusso said is not for lack of occurrence but because most funding is used to research sex trafficking. 

“One of the biggest misconceptions, specifically here in Maine, is the mentality that it doesn’t happen here. It absolutely happens here, and that is why our program is in existence,” she said. 

Since 2013, Preble Street’s anti-trafficking division has been working across Maine to support all ages, genders, sexualities, races and immigration statuses, whether they are actively being trafficked or have experienced it in the past. The organization helps an average of 100-150 victims of both labor and sex trafficking every year, a third of which are under the age of 18 either then or when the trafficking occurred. 

Virusso said these numbers have grown over the past year as new resources have allowed Preble Street to expand its outreach programs to rural areas where information is harder to come by, most recently Down East. This includes providing training to different sectors, placing awareness posters in public places, and going to schools to educate young people. 

The realities of trafficking 

There are sectors where labor trafficking is more likely to occur: Professions that see higher exploitive practices due to fewer regulations or oversights; ones that employ large migrant workforces or immigrants who may lack a lawful presence – although it’s a misconception that most forced labor victims are in the U.S. illegally, as the National Institute of Justice found that 71% of victims enter the country on lawful work visas. Meanwhile, most people Preble Street encounters are survivors of domestic servitude: forced labor within a private home.  

When identifying possible victims of trafficking, the organization shies away from using physical descriptors or behaviors that may perpetuate stereotypes and instead takes a needs-based approach. 

“Trafficking certainly can be folks being held against their will, but I would also argue that the conditions that perpetuate trafficking are structural. When people don’t have their needs met, they’re at higher risk of being victimized so without housing, without food, without health care, without social connection,” explained Virusso.  

This also means minority groups that are statistically more likely to have unmet social needs are also at an increased risk of being trafficked, such as Indigenous men and women who experience violent crime at rates higher than the national average or LGBTQ youth who account for a disproportionate number of runaways and minors experiencing homelessness.  

Preble Street endeavors to target the systematic issues that make people vulnerable to trafficking, like offering transitional and rapid rehoming services as 90% of the people they serve, both adults and youth, identify lack of stable housing as a main issue. Providing these resources allows people to remove themselves from harmful cycles where they could potentially be revictimized.  

In addition to social factors, Virusso also identified forced criminality as a tactic used by traffickers to control victims: forcing them to work in illicit environments (such as unlicensed marijuana growing or harvesting sites), transport or possess drugs, write false checks or do other illegal activities. 

The web can be hard to disentangle as these victims are often misidentified as criminals when there is coercion occurring. This becomes harder with juvenile offenders. In cases of sex trafficking, anyone under 18 who is induced to perform a commercial sex act is considered a victim, regardless of whether they were forced or coerced. This isn’t true for youth victims of forced criminality who need to prove external pressure, but Virusso said this requirement doesn’t take into account that children are socialized to listen to adults. 

“There’s no more powerful force than to leverage a crime that somebody’s committed over them,” she said.  

What can be done? 

One of the main components of Preble Street’s outreach program is providing training to help different sectors identify signs of trafficking, particularly in the healthcare industry as 68% of victims are seen by a healthcare professional while being trafficked. Some indicators could include being repeatedly treated for the same injuries or frequent STIs. 

Virusso also advises people to vote for policies that increase access to social services and immigration relief as ways to alleviate trafficking and labor exploitation.  

Above all else: Listen to survivors. They know what they need better than anyone else.  

“We want to make sure that anytime somebody is seeking to exit a situation, they have their resources to do so, but we don’t believe in a rescue mentality. Survivors are savvy, resilient, smart people who are making decisions for themselves daily about what they need, and what they don’t need, to make sure that their situation is as safe as possible,” said Virusso.  

Preble Street will host an event in honor of Human Trafficking Awareness Month at the Healing Center, 55 Portland St., Portland on Jan. 22, 3-5 p.m. All are welcome.  

Resources 

National Human Trafficking 24/7 Hotline: 1-888-373-7888, Text: 233733 

Preble Street: (207) 775-0026. Not sure if you’re experiencing exploitation or trafficking? Take the online self-identification on Preble Street’s website.