State used ‘heavy hand’ when threatening to close Piscataquis jail, sheriff says

By Marie Weidmayer, Bangor Daily News Staff

Operations at the Piscataquis County Jail were not dangerous and there was not a crisis when the state briefly ceased operations and threatened to close the facility, the sheriff said on Sept. 2.

The jail in Dover-Foxcroft failed an inspection in July from the Maine Department of Corrections. Now, nearly a month after the facility briefly stopped taking new people, things are “flowing as they did previously,” Sheriff Robert Young said.

The department ordered the Piscataquis County Jail to stop taking inmates and move boarded inmates to their original facilities on Aug. 5 after the jail failed an inspection.

The state’s decision to stop operations was made with a “heavy hand,” Young said. The inspection report had inaccurate information about a key medical issue cited in it and mischaracterized another issue, he said.

“Our jail operations were not dangerous, nor, in my opinion, did they require this heavy hand from the state. There was no crisis,” Young said.

It was the first time the Department of Corrections has threatened to close a Maine correctional facility due to a failed inspection, Deputy Commissioner Anthony Cantillo said previously. The department did not respond to a request for comment.

The sheriff’s office submitted a corrective action plan Aug. 7 and then implemented and made adjustments to be in-line with the department’s requirements, Young said. Young provided the Bangor Daily News with a copy of the corrective action plan on Sept. 1.

For decades the jail operated on the same system to manage medications, the plan said. The inspection flagged that a prescription for one inmate was used to provide medication to three people, as well as inaccurate counts of medications that are controlled substances.

The jail is working to hire a full-time certified medical assistant, Young said.

The fire marshal’s office conducted an inspection, and the jail is waiting on the report, Young said. An audit is ongoing, but it’s not something the sheriff’s office can control the speed of, he said.

One of the major issues raised in the inspection was a delayed medical response during an outbreak of an unspecified gastrointestinal illness and a failure to quarantine people. 

A doctor at the jail determined the illness was from food poisoning, and not infectious, the corrective plan said. The food poisoning was caused by chicken patties.

Another key concern was that there was no count or log of syringes and needles that were brought into the facility from the community, according to the inspection report. That was a one-off issue where the medication manager brought in syringes from the community, the corrective plan said.

That shouldn’t have happened but it was addressed and will not happen again, the jail said in the plan. The community overall can’t just come into the jail and they especially can’t bring syringes, according to the plan.

At the time of the inspection there was no policy for care of a pregnant inmate. A policy was written and approved by the jail doctor, the plan said.

Overall three items were incorrectly on the inspection report and had been signed off as OK during the inspection, the plan said.

Despite the errors and unavailable documents, men and women in the jail had no complaints to report “regarding the quality of care received for medical or behavioral health needs,” the report said.

The fire inspection report and audit will be submitted to the department when they’re available, the plan said. The department has a schedule of visits and inspections, Cantillo said.