Committee advances bills to reform War on Drugs policies in split votes mainebeacon.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mainebeacon.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
AUGUSTA Legislation sponsored by State Representative Bill Pluecker, I-Warren, to reinstate COVID-19 hazard pay to Department of Corrections Staff was unanimously approved by the Legislature’s Criminal Justice & Public Safety Committee.
LD 1683, “An Act To Compensate Department of Corrections Employees for Hazardous Work” will rightfully provide Department of Corrections staff hazard pay relating from the COVID-19 pandemic that they stopped receiving from the state government in December.
At the beginning of the pandemic, to encourage Corrections staff from leaving their high-risk jobs which became complicated by a deadly virus, Governor Janet Mills issued a hazard pay stipend on top of their regular pay from federal Coronavirus Relief Funds, with an understanding that the pay would continue until the state of emergency ended.
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Evangelos pushes to restore parole to Maine’s justice system
By Douglas Rooks | Apr 20, 2021
Rep. Jeffrey Evangelos
[Editor’s note: this column was originally published in The Maine Monitor.]
If you are sentenced to a long prison term in Maine, your chances of being released early are almost nil.
In 1976, Maine became the first state to abolish parole entirely, also doing away with the Executive Council, which once shared authority for pardons with the governor. Since then, sentence commutations, another form of early release, have been rare, perhaps non-existent.
Rep. Jeffrey Evangelos (I-Friendship), who is sponsoring the first bill in nearly a decade that would restore parole, says the Department of Corrections cannot find any record of an inmate being released before the original sentence date, minus “good time” credits.
Do we believe in redemption or not? : Rep Evangelos pushes to restore parole to Maine s justice system penbaypilot.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from penbaypilot.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Police say bill to eliminate intelligence unit would make Maine less safe
But critics of the Maine Information and Analysis Center say the more than $1 million in funding would be better used for other programs.
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Law enforcement leaders from around the state raised the alarm Monday against legislation that would eliminate a controversial police intelligence agency that critics say has strayed from its original mission and compromises Mainers’ privacy.
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Charlotte Warren, D-Hallowell, would end the Maine Information and Analysis Center, a division of the Maine State Police, and return more than $1 million to the general fund.