I am responding to the paper’s Aug. 3 article, “Board of corrections, sheriffs reach cost-share agreement for jails.”

Prisoners at the Maine State Prison are saddened to hear Somerset Jail will be taking prisoners again. We are talking about housing units that hold more than 60 prisoners and regularly are locked down half-days. Here at the prison, 60 inmates are in a pod and only one staff member. Not so at Two Bridges and Somerset Jail. They have two staff per pod and only 30 inmates out at a time.

There are no positive living conditions that would make an inmate want to reside at either jail, compared to living at Maine State Prison, except that it might be closer to home. Other than that, inmates transferred to Somerset lose access to recreation equipment and more re-entry programs.

So what we’re talking about is simply warehousing inmates and letting the counties share the wealth of penal profits to imprison inmates for the state.

More money should be concentrated toward re-entry programs to cure the abundance of addicts smothering Maine’s correctional facility. These jails do not adequately prepare inmates to return to society. Reviewing limited programs at these facilities emphasizes that many prisoners will return promptly back into the revolving doors of judicial warehousing.

Kevin J. Collins

Warren