When Crimes Become Civil, Accountability Disappears

By Chief Eric Small

Maine’s latest criminal justice reform, L.D. 1189 (Public Law 2025, Chapter 496), took effect this year with little public attention, but its impact will be felt every day on our streets. This law allows prosecutors to take certain Class E crimes, conduct long recognized as criminal, and charge them instead as civil violations punishable only by a fine. No criminal record. No meaningful consequence. No real accountability. The City of Sanford is already feeling the effects.

If that sounds abstract, let me make it real.

Recently, our officers encountered an individual out on 27 separate sets of bail conditions. Twenty-seven. Each one tied to a prior charge where a court determined conditions were necessary to protect the public and ensure compliance.

At some point, we have to ask: what are our prosecutors doing? Bail conditions are supposed to mean something. They are not suggestions. They are court-ordered restrictions placed on someone who has already demonstrated behavior that brought them into the criminal justice system. When someone accumulates that many sets of conditions, it is not a sign that the system is working; it is a sign that the system is tolerating repeated noncompliance.

Now legislators have layered on a law that allows additional criminal conduct to be treated as a civil infraction, essentially a ticket, at the sole discretion of a district attorney, with no immediate accountability. This could create significant disparity across district attorney offices statewide. Where is the fairness in that?

At the same time, the Legislature considered L.D. 1823, S.P. 710, An Act to Promote Transparency in the Criminal Justice System. The bill would have required the Maine Attorney General to publicly post criminal case outcomes from each District Attorney’s Office. This would have improved our system by giving the public quick access to decisions that, in some cases, reflect a failure to hold individuals accountable. Transparency is a fundamental part of government. But the measure ultimately failed.

While I can appreciate the intent of L.D. 1823, transparency alone is not accountability. Posting outcomes after the fact does not correct a system that increasingly allows criminal conduct to be downgraded or dismissed in the first place. If anything, it risks documenting a system that is steadily lowering the bar for consequences. However, this type of transparency may have driven change through public pressure.

What message are we sending?

As a police chief, I can tell you what it looks like on the ground. Officers are repeatedly dealing with the same individuals, often in the same neighborhoods, for the same behavior, with fewer and fewer tools to intervene in a meaningful way. Victims and business owners see the same faces return again and again, with no change in outcome. The concept of accountability begins to erode.

This is not about being harsh. It is about being honest. Low-level crime matters. Disorder matters. The early stages of criminal behavior matter. When those actions are met with little more than a fine, if it is paid at all, the system is not correcting behavior; it is normalizing it.

We are already operating under significant constraints. Bail reform has limited our ability to hold individuals who repeatedly violate conditions. Diversion, while often well-intentioned, removes consequences without ensuring compliance. Now, with L.D. 1189, we are formally creating a pathway to treat criminal conduct as non-criminal.

It is also worth noting how this became law. L.D. 1189 passed on narrow margins, 77–70 in the House and 19–15 in the Senate. This was not a broadly agreed-upon reform; it was a contested policy choice.

What this tells me is that, at its core, the issue is not about politics; it is about right and wrong. With politics aside, Mainers believe in accountability. Our state has always been grounded as a safe place to live and visit, and accountability ensures this will remain true for generations to come.

Individually, each of these decisions may be defended as reasonable. Collectively, they are moving us in a direction where accountability is becoming optional.

After sitting through a morning briefing, hearing the highs of hardworking officers doing everything right, and then seeing the disappointment they carry as a result of decisions made in Augusta and by their district attorneys, it becomes clear how demoralizing this has become for our profession.

Our officers are showing up. They are doing the work. They are holding the line. But they are increasingly being asked to do it in a system that is not holding people accountable on the other end. That wears on you.

It is time for the public to engage.

Call your legislators. Tell them enough is enough. Tell them you expect a system that holds individuals accountable for criminal behavior in Maine. Call your elected district attorneys. Tell them to prosecute these violations for what they are: crimes.

Ask your gubernatorial candidates the hard questions. Where do they stand on accountability? Do they support laws that downgrade criminal conduct, or will they restore balance to the system with the power of their pen?

If they do not listen, then it is time to elect people who will.

Accountability should not be controversial. It should be the foundation of our state. Is this the “Way Life Should Be?” I say it is not.