We spent months examining Maine’s juvenile justice system. Here’s what we learned.

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.