Last year, an economist at the Maine Heritage Policy Center, the Portland-based  conservative think tank, published a study highlighting the 40 fastest-growing state programs paid for by the General Fund.

The report evaluated programs and administrative costs for the two-year state budget periods between 2000 and 2008.

There were few surprises. 

However, one of them, the Department of Corrections, stood out. According to the report, the department, which oversees the state prison system and the Correctional Medical Services Fund, grew 69 percent over the study period. That’s more than any other department, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education.

Conservatives aren’t the only ones who saw a problem. In 2008, Gov. John Baldacci advanced a controversial consolidation law that merged the state prison system with the county jails.

The plan turned Oxford and Franklin county jails into booking stations where inmates are held for no more than three days before being sent elsewhere.

The goal, Baldacci said, was to slow corrections spending by maximizing bed space at county jails so Maine inmates were no longer shipped out of state.

The initiative has had mixed results.

Administrative costs in the Department of Corrections were still high in 2009, according to the MHPC report. And last year, the state’s Board of Corrections, set up to oversee the 15 counties, reportedly needed $3.5 million more than originally requested.

According to the candidates, the cost of the corrections system is part of larger problem that includes how Maine handles and rehabilitates inmates. 

Eliot Cutler, 64, independent

Cutler said the state must first look at ways to prevent its prisons and jails from becoming the “dumping grounds for the mentally disabled.”

“(Cumberland County) Sheriff Mark Dion likes to say that he runs the largest mental health agency in the state of Maine,” Cutler said. “And he’s right.”

He said the state also doesn’t do a good job moving prisoners into productive roles in society, thereby increasing recidivism rates.

“It’s a lot like our welfare problem,” he said. “We’re paying far more attention to extending services than we are to moving people out of circumstances where they need services.”

John Jenkins, 58, independent

“There’s no correction going on in our correction facilities,” Jenkins said. “We’re warehousing people, that’s what we’re really doing.”

Jenkins said fixing the system will require investing in more education programs for inmates. But most importantly, he said, the state needs to invest more in public education to ensure people don’t end up in jail in the first place.

“There’s a direct correlation between crib to career and crib to corrections,” he said. “When one fails, the other one’s waiting for you.”

“If Johnny has more something to live for, he’s less inclined to do something stupid to jeopardize it,” he added.

 Jenkins also favors housing inmates from other states to help fund the system.

“Those other states pay a premium,” he said. “That’s revenue for our system, our people, right there.”

Paul LePage, 61, Republican

LePage, like the other candidates, said the corrections system hasn’t been a high priority for his campaign.

However, he said, the state’s abandonment of its mental health system has resulted in putting the mentally ill in jail.

“I will try to empty our jails of those who don’t need to be there,” he said.

LePage added, “Those that should be there, I don’t think they need to be living the Life of Riley in a country club scene. I don’t believe we should be providing 100 percent of their health care when we can’t provide it to hardworking Mainers.”

LePage cited a recent case in Oregon in which a death row inmate sought a kidney transplant.

“That’s just crazy,” he said.

LePage also said he supports bringing back the death penalty, which the state abolished in 1887.

According to an analysis by the California Commission on the Administration of Justice, the cost of an inmate on death row there is between 11 and 21 times higher than for a prisoner serving a life sentence, because of the average 25 years of additional appeals and security costs.

Libby Mitchell, 70, Democrat

Mitchell said investing in early education gets at the “root cause of why so many people end up in the system.”

“We need to think of alternatives to incarceration,” she said.

Mitchell also touted the jail consolidation plan, which, she said, has saved the state from having to build new prisons or send inmates out of state.

“The partnership with the counties has utilized underutilized bed space,” she said. “That’s saved millions of dollars.”

Shawn Moody, 51, independent

Moody said the real problem plaguing the corrections system is the state’s dropout rate.

“What do we have, some 2,700 dropouts in 2008?” he said. “That’s a pretty big liability out there in society versus being a productive member. I’m interested in addressing that. We need to get at the root cause, to find a preventative solution rather than a reactive one.”

Moody said welfare reforms, such as welfare-to-workfare initiatives, would dovetail with easing the dropout rate. The stakes are high, he said.

“If that person becomes incarcerated, the odds of that happening again are exponential,” he said.

He added, “What are we going to do, keep building more jails and hiring more law enforcement? That’s not going to work.”

Kevin Scott, 42, independent

Scott said the state has a lot of nonviolent offenders behind bars. And that, he said, is a problem.

“If you have county commissioners and local level police officers telling you it isn’t working, well, guess what?” he said.

 Scott said he’d seek a thorough assessment of what the state’s doing with nonviolent offenders.

“Say, a marijuana offense or a driving after suspension,” he said. “Do we really need to incarcerate these people for such long periods of time?”

Scott said he favored home arrest.

“Let’s put the cost for some of these nonviolent offenders to themselves,” he said. “Let them live at home, heat their own house.”

Tomorrow: The candidates on wind, water and the state’s energy priorities.