Help Behind Bars

The halls in the Hancock County Jail are brightly lit and quiet. In one wing, males dressed in bright jumpsuits amble across the group area. Some watch TV while others play card games on metallic benches; a few sleep. It’s hot inside and the air is stale; the windows never open. Everyone inside seems to be waiting, waiting for something to happen to break up the monotony. Waiting for their time to be up.

But the residents come to life when they hear the buzzing clicks of the door. Two volunteers wheel in an oversized bookshelf. It’s time for the weekly library visit. The librarians, part of Volunteers for Hancock County Jail Residents (VHJR), ask the residents if there are particular books they’re looking for. Jail residents shyly open up about their needs.

“Do you have anything in Spanish?”

“A divorce handbook.”

“You have the third book in this series?”

The volunteers provide the reading material for the next week, as well as precious contact from the outside world.

Incarceration is enough to rattle even the sanest person, but many jail inmates are dealing with mental and/or chemical addiction illnesses behind bars. The jail environment isn’t the easiest place to do that. They have little access to the outdoors, not much opportunity for physical activity, and they’re crammed in rooms together.

“Some of them are detoxing,” says Judy Garvey, VHJR director. “A young man in my group yesterday couldn’t sit still he was so ill.”

According to Carol Carothers, executive director of NAMI Maine (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill), jails have become the de facto mental health facilities in Maine. A 2003 study by the Maine Civil Liberties Union found that 70% of all inmates were suffering from substance abuse or mental health illness. The penal system, Carothers says, has been slow to treat these problems. The same study found that about half of the mentally ill prisoners said they were cut off from their prescribed medication. “While mental health care is a guaranteed right to the incarcerated,” she says, “it often comes down to a lack of funding.”

But thanks to a dedicated group of volunteers, a progressive jail administration, and a mental health team, residents of the Hancock County Jail have a good shot at getting better. The overall goal of the VHJR is not just to make jail residents feel good about themselves, but to cut crime rates. Ex-convicts who have untreated mental health issues often return to prison. There is a growing understanding among jail administrators and community members that the best way to fight crime is to help heal the criminals. With innovative volunteer programs, access to group therapy, and medication to combat withdrawal and mental illness, Hancock County Jail residents have a shot at walking out of jail healthier than they walked in. Treating the underlying problem not only helps increase public safety, but also saves taxpayer money, Judy Garvey argues. It costs $30,000 to $40,000 per year to incarcerate a person in the United States.

Garvey, a nurturing woman with a determined smile, became a jail health advocate after watching a family member struggle through their incarceration. She saw how hard it was to stay healthy in jail and she wanted to start a support group for jail residents. Hancock County sheriff Bill Clark allowed her to set up a volunteer program in 2001.

Over the years, Garvey and volunteers have offered many programs designed to help jail residents, including stress reduction classes, library on wheels, yoga, concerts, and support groups. The jail even has a therapy dog.

“He’s trained to just kind of be there,” Garvey says. “The women who are missing their children just love to brush his hair.”

One ex-jail resident, who asked not to be named, says the VHJR men’s support group was the best part of his week.

“It was the only thing that provided any intellectual stimulation,” he says.

The Hancock County Jail doesn’t have to rely on volunteers for everything. It has a professional mental health team, comprised of a guidance counselor, a psychiatrist, a Health and Human Services liaison, and a social worker. The social worker, Elizabeth “Betsy” Duncombe, is a former VHJR volunteer who has created an innovative program to help jail residents learn to deal with their issues.

After nearly a decade volunteering in jails and prisons and a return to school for a degree in social work, Duncombe created a holistic therapy program for the incarcerated called Free Inside. After publishing a manual for the program online, Free Inside has been adopted among prison health advocates around the world.

The program focuses on helping jail and prison residents through drug-less tools like meditation, focused breathing, and psychotherapy. The program uses a combination of tools that Duncombe herself used to heal from the pain of addiction and childhood abuse, and she still sounds in awe of how well it works.

“I can’t tell you how many people I see in jail who come into the room in agitation, fear, and anger and leave after half an hour with peace on their faces,” she says.

Jail offers a golden opportunity for mental health therapy, Duncombe says. Incarceration is often when people hit rock bottom and are open to making a change.

But as with many things, funding is an ongoing issue. While jail administrators like Garvey’s and Duncombe’s programs, they often can’t fund them at the level they'd like. Many VHJR programs have been cut at various times and Duncombe currently visits the jail just three hours a week.

The problem is a lack of funds to pay guards to protect volunteers, says jail administrator Carl Dannenberg. The current economic crisis won’t help: The state plans to hold 2009 incarceration funding at 2008 levels and the governor is planning to ship inmates out of state to cut costs.

Garvey remains unfazed. She’s often had to fight for her programs before. “We kind of keep going, no matter what goes on politically,” she says.

The inmates leafing through their new library books appreciate that.