AUGUSTA, Maine — Three bills aim to divest from Maine's only youth prison, Long Creek Youth Development Center.
The bills include LD 1779 from Representative Grayson Lookner, LD 155 from Representative Michael Brennan, and LD 1878 from House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross.
For LD 1779, a public hearing was held Tuesday where formerly incarcerated youth spoke in support of the bill.
The bill, if passed as is, would force the Department of Corrections to come up with a plan to take its Long Creek funding, and apply it to individual care strategies for each youth that is currently incarcerated.
"We don't want to see Long Creek used to incarcerate anyone," Skye Gosselin said, who is a formerly incarcerated youth and a founder of Maine Youth Justice. "It's not like a school, if schools looked like this, then people would take their kids out immediately and homeschool them."
Randall Liberty, commissioner of the Department of Corrections, submitted testimony in opposition to the bill.
He said this bill would lead to the closure of Long Creek, which his office does not support.
"It's a false narrative to think the state can close a facility, redistribute funds, and suddenly no longer have violent young people," Liberty said in his testimony.
Liberty added that Long Creek has a plethora of behavioral resources for children staying at the prison.
But reporting from NEWS CENTER Maine last year showed the staff is overworked and often burnt out. Public records show the prison allowed staff to sleep in housing meant for girls transitioning out of the prison.
Public records also showed few girls ever using the housing, which the state spent two million dollars on.
Advocates have consistently called for the closure of Long Creek, which currently incarcerates a couple dozen children.
Representative Grayson Lookner, of Portland, said this bill would not immediately shut down Long Creek, but force the DOC to create a timeline.
"There is a lot of evidence that shows youth held at Long Creek are not the same and should not be treated as little adults," Rep Lookner said.
The bill will have a work session in the coming weeks.
Gosselin said she hopes the three bills together could be combined for an ultimate plan and become law.
Governor Mills vetoed a previous bill in 2022 that would have shut down the facility altogether.