Within the span of an hour last week, Doug Dunbar had driven down dozens of Bangor streets to deliver prepaid cellphones and help someone refill a propane tank needed for heating.
Dunbar didn’t know Brittney Wallace, a woman staying at the Well warming shelter in Bangor, before he delivered her a phone on Thursday. Wallace hadn’t met Dunbar before either, she said, but she had heard about him through other people staying at the shelter.
“He really dedicates his life to this, to helping people,” Wallace said.
Regina McKinney, the woman Dunbar helped get a new propane tank, said he has assisted her multiple times through his nonprofit organization, Penobscot County Cares.
The organization, founded in 2021, has lofty goals of addressing the lack of affordable housing, inadequate substance use disorder treatment and insufficient care for people with mental health or brain disorders.
This advocacy started in 2017, when Dunbar — who was once Maine’s deputy secretary of state — was sentenced to 136 days in jail on drunken driving charges, sending him to the Penobscot County Jail.
Since his release, Dunbar has been a vocal advocate for changes to the justice system, arguing that he met people in jail who would be better served by mental health or treatment services.
In particular, he’s spent years speaking out against plans to build a new facility.
Now, the decision of whether or not a new jail will be built in Penobscot County has higher stakes than ever. Penobscot County is facing a $7 million crisis created by years of budget shortfalls, largely due to the aging jail. And Dunbar is one of the most outspoken people to oppose the solution backed by county leaders that could be headed to a vote as soon as this year.
“You would think there are only two options; we do nothing and go broke or we build a new jail,” Dunbar said when discussing the county’s plans.
Multiple Penobscot County officials have said a new jail is needed because of a lack of space for inmates and mounting deferred maintenance. More people are arrested and housed in the jail than its 156-inmate populate cap can handle, forcing roughly 60 inmates to be boarded out every day.
Boarding has cost the county more money each year, totaling more than $2 million this year. That surging price contributed to the jail’s $3.5 million budget shortfall for 2026.
Building a larger jail could eliminate the need to board out inmates, Penobscot County Sheriff Troy Morton said.
Dunbar was one of those inmates. After spending two weeks in the Penobscot County Jail, the 58-year-old was transported to Two Bridges Jail in Wiscasset, he said.
When he was released in 2018, Dunbar started to attend Penobscot County Commissioners meetings and thought he would be able to make changes to the criminal justice system quickly, but said elected officials weren’t open to enacting the changes he thought were needed.
In that same year, another activist in Bangor, Larry Dansinger, told him about the No Penobscot Jail Expansion group. Dunbar later formed Penobscot County Cares, which isn’t connected to his advocacy against a new jail.
Since joining the anti-expansion group, Dunbar has been one of the primary figures pushing back against proposals from county leaders to build a new jail. Instead, he is urging county officials to support more diversion programs.
“We can either build a new building or we can solve problems,” he said.
No Penobscot Jail Expansion released a plan in November that would sort people into three program tracks instead of jail: pre-booking, court-directed and post-booking diversions.
Pre-booking diversion is when the responding officer refers someone to a case manager or a resource instead of booking them. Similarly, judges could rule that someone can complete required services or meet with a case manager instead of going to jail. Post booking occurs after someone is sent to jail, and includes professionals entering the facility to offer services.
When asked his thoughts on such a plan, Morton said hundreds of people are already rerouted from jail daily through bail reform, pre-trial programming and diversion.
Funding for an online diversion program, Advent, was approved by County Commissioners on Wednesday, but Deputy District Attorney Chelsea Lynds could not say how many people the program would divert.
The $75 fee for the online class is a barrier that not every person will be able to afford, Dunbar said, which may make the program less productive.
Morton said he agrees that “we cannot arrest our way out of this crisis,” referring to a growing number of crimes that he linked to substance-use disorders that is fueling the amount of people held at the jail, but there is no comprehensive solution yet.
Penobscot County Jail also provides a medical-assisted treatment program that nearly 100 people are enrolled in, Commissioner Andre Cushing said.
There should be more outside services like Dunbar suggests, Morton said, but the conditions for providing medical and mental services inside the jail need “substantial improvement” to meet modern correctional standards.
“Maintaining and repairing a failing building is not just impractical; it is financially irresponsible,” Morton said.
Building a new facility would allow the county to stop boarding inmates out, provide more comprehensive health care services in the jail and create more space for counseling and other services, Cushing said.
Proposals for a new jail have been presented by the county over the past seven years, and Dunbar has opposed all of them, he said.
But he recognizes that his strategy hasn’t gained popularity among the Greater Bangor community. His ongoing protest against plans that have never come to fruition have made him into a version of “the boy who cried wolf,” he said.
Even with a budget crisis now brewing in Penobscot County, Dunbar said people have not shown more interest in opposing a new facility and support for the group has not grown.
“People have not paid attention, and it’s partially our fault,” Dunbar said of the group’s approach.
The latest proposal for a new jail includes a building that would have between 250 and 300 beds and with a cost around $75 to $80 million, Cushing said in September.
The proposed design is a single-level facility that will make moving from one area to another and offering services easier, Cushing said. The location Cushing said the county is “focused on” will also be in a better location.
As of October, Penobscot County spent $100,000 to hold a piece of land in the Ammo Industrial Park in Hampden, but has not purchased the property. A vote to move the jail from the county seat will need to pass before the jail can be relocated from Bangor.
Instead of asking voters for tens of millions of dollars to fund the new jail, Dunbar believes that the County Commissioners could ask for less money and fund the diversion programs instead.
“Do you just want a new building to save money decades and decades from now? Is that all you want?” Dunbar asked. “That’s not what I want. I want a safer community and more help.”
