BANGOR, Maine — The Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department is under scrutiny from jail reform activists after the arrest of Robert Ireland, 48, on sexual assault and tobacco smuggling charges that allegedly happened in a cell block.
"We really have to look at what we’re doing in jails and prisons under a different lens," Jan Collins, the assistant director of the Maine Prison Advocacy Coalition, said Tuesday. To Collins, the arrest in Penobscot County, which happened last Friday, points to a larger problem.
"I think the thing that’s most important, whether it's in jails or prisons, is that there be independent oversight."
The charges against Ireland also highlight a different issue: the length of training for jail employees. Maine requires all corrections officers to attend a five-week basic training course at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in Vassalboro. That’s below the 9.5-week course for New Hampshire corrections officers and less than half the 11-week training regimen in Massachusetts.
Despite the discrepancy, few in the corrections community have linked training to Ireland’s alleged misconduct in Penobscot County. Michael Pike, the Somerset County jail administrator, believes the case was an outlier.
“Anytime that you hire people, you're inevitably going to hire that occasional person that might be flawed,” Pike said on Tuesday.
Sheriff Troy Morton of Penobscot County, who employed Robert Ireland, agrees. In a statement, Morton writes “his criminal acts are not representative of our agency mission, or staff.”
Still, to Collins and other advocates, there’s a clear remedy to bring corrections officers in line with the integrity their agencies strive for: “Providing a situation where a person is not just responsible for punishment but also for rehabilitation.”