Brewer Police Chief Chris Martin appeared on the Q-Point podcast over the weekend to discuss a range of topics, focusing on the negative impacts of soft-on-crime policies, such as no-cash bail and Maine’s “Good Samaritan” laws.
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“We’re putting the burden and the onus on the people that are law-abiding and peace loving people, who now have to carry the extra burden of criminal behavior. So whether that’s higher prices because Walmart’s losses have gone through the roof, or whether that’s longer waiting times in the emergency rooms or walk-in care, higher insurance premiums, it’s all passed on and absorbed at some point,” Chief Martin said.
Martin’s weekend interview with hosts Corenna and David Quirk built on an early May interview with them, where he discussed similar issues. In both interviews, Martin addressed the catastrophic effects of Maine’s 2021 “cashless bail” law, which removes bail requirements for certain “minor” Class E misdemeanor crimes.
He argued that due to bail reform and cashless bail, many criminals are simply released and free to commit more crimes.
This, in turn, demoralizes officers, who then do not bother arresting criminals for criminal mischief and other offenses, according the Brewer PD chief. Instead, they issue a court summons, which the repeat offenders then ignore.
Cashless bail also applies to the crime of violating conditions of release, which is applicable in cases of previous bail violations, such as failure to appear in court.
Martin claimed that violating conditions of release is the most common charge in the state, meaning that cashless bail dramatically harms law enforcement’s ability to keep repeat offenders from re-offending.
“They’re repeat offenders and there’s nothing that stops them. They never stay in jail. They’re in, they’re out, they commit more crime, they’re in, they’re out, they commit more crime, so that one person may have four charges in one week,” he lamented.
Without mentioning a particular political party or lawmaker, Martin criticized Augusta for considering a bill in the most recent legislative session that would have entirely eliminated the crime of violating conditions of release.
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The bill, LD 179, from Rep. David Sinclair (D-Bath), ultimately failed, but Democrats in the legislature do not appear likely to give up their efforts to legalize crime.
Martin pointed out that crime only increases as a result of lenient policies, convincing more people, who previously followed the law out of fear of punishment, that they can commit crimes with little to no risk of reprisal.
The costs of increased crime are passed on to law-abiding Mainers through businesses forced to raise prices to account for theft losses or through a loss of safety in a community overrun with drug addicts and homeless people.
The soft-on-crime policies also have the potential to exacerbate Maine’s already significant drug issues. He pointed to proposed “safe injection” sites, where criminals can shoot-up with no fear of legal repercussions.
“I think it would be a tragic mistake” he said, in response to a question about bring safe-injection sites to the Bangor area. “If we look at where they’re happening everywhere else, they’re failures.”
He highlighted failures in Vancouver, Canada, where he says the sites have led to catastrophic results, with homeless people collapsed in the streets and human excrement rotting in the open air.
Despite these epic failures, Maine lawmakers have tried, and thus far failed, to implement them statewide in Maine. Sen. Richard Bennett (R-Oxford), currently running for governor as an Independent, proposed a bill to establish “safe injection sites” where criminals could use drugs without fear of legal consequences.
“There is a coordinated group that are continually down in Augusta pushing for these social justice reforms,” said Martin in a May interview.
He pointed to the national Recovery Advocacy Project nonprofit as the “tip of the spear” pushing for lenient drug laws in Maine and across the country.
Martin also criticized Maine’s “Good Samaritan” law, implemented in 2021. Under this law, police are prohibited from arresting individuals for a variety of offenses, excluding crimes such as murder or rape, when responding to calls for help with overdoses.
During the May interview, Martin slammed Maine politicians for implementing soft-on-crime policies regarding drug abuse. He argued that lenient drug policies, often pushed under the guise of compassion, are not only worse for the public but also worse for the drug abusers themselves.
“If your child, I don’t care how old they are, were actively shooting up fentanyl, would you make sure every single day to bring them safe use supplies until they’re ready, or would you be doing everything in your power to find a leverage point to get your child on a better path,” said Martin.
“I know what everybody’s going to say. So why would we have public policies that do anything any different,” he argued. “We’re essentially loving them to death.”
In the past five years, Martin has seen the quantities of drugs confiscated in Brewer go from grams and ounces to kilograms. He attributed the increase in drug quantities in part to growing gang activity, fueled by the open-border policies of the previous administration.
Along with increased drug activity comes more weapons offenses from drug dealers who carry arms to defend their products.
“One of the worst things that you can do is to create public policy that nurtures this drug economy,” he said during the May interview.
He urged Augusta lawmakers to focus on “common sense” policies rather than radical partisanship when addressing the state’s crime problems.
