The Legislature is considering a controversial and potentially precedent-setting piece of legislation that would set strict limits on the use of solitary confinement in Maine prisons and establish a systematic review of its use. The bill, which came up for public hearing today, would limit segregation to 45 days and prohibit its use for the mentally ill. Tonight Susan Sharon begins the first of two reports on the practical, ethical and psychological effects of this practice and what inmates, former inmates, guards and others have to say about it.

At any given time in the Maine State Prison in Warren, there are about 100 prisoners assigned to the Special Management Unit, or SMU, where they are locked down for 23-hours a day with limited access to books, writing materials and other people. Prison staff declined to allow an MPBN reporter to visit the facility also known as the Supermax.

But they did consent to have prison staff interviewed and to allow one inmate to discuss his prior experience there. The inmate was permitted to speak without the presence of corrections staff. "My name is Brad Chesnel. I'm here for murder. I would imagine I spent close to two years total in segregation, on and off, but at one time I spent close up to 11-and-a-half months at one time."

Chesnel says he was placed in solitary confinement for fighting. "I was defending myself in an assault, and usually when you get in a fight in here you receive a write up. I didn't even get that. I just got automatically high risk."

"High risk" is considered the most serious level of segregation at the prison. There's also administrative segregation, where prisoners are sent for disciplinary reasons or because they need to be separated from the general population for the safety of themselves or others.

In Chesnel's case, even though he is serving a life sentence plus 40 years for murder, he had not been considered high risk at the time of his segregation. He says he had been a model prisoner with no disciplinary record.

"And, basically, what it was was someone took a swing at me and I just swung back," he says. "I was on my way to chow first thing in the morning. And I worked education for six years. I've done all their courses and I was actually teaching the computer lab class course. That's where they come and got me, actually."

Susan Sharon: "Did you try to protest this?"

Brad Chesnel: "Oh yeah, I wrote many, three appeals to it. I wrote Deputy Warden Riley several times, and no response other than, 'You're being placed on high risk.' And that's where I sat."

Six months into his 11 month sanction, Chesnel says he was given a review and told by staff that they weren't comfortable with letting him out. He says at a subsequent review two months later he was cleared to go back to the general population, but there were no beds available so he spent nine months waiting for one to open up.

Under the proposed legislation under consideration now in Augusta, segregated prisoners would have the opportunity for review every seven days. Segregation couldn't extend more than 45 days, except under special circumstances. Even then, a prisoner would have to be given the chance to defend himself with an attorney and witnesses in the equivalent of a jailhouse trial.

"If that was to pass and we had to do that, there would definitely be the need for an increased staff," says Dwight Fowles, the manager of the prison's closed unit. He has previously worked on the SMU and as a corrections officer and sergeant. He saysin addition to costs of attorneys, the prison could have to do as many as 40 to 50 reviews per week.

"Which is potentially tying up a supervisor, a caseworker and a mental health worker," Fowles says. "And already we've experienced state shutdown days, budget restrictions, positions that haven't been allowed to be filled, and it's not easy. And I think if they add increased requirements to that, they should give us the tools we need to do it with if they're going to do that."

Fowles says segregation of inmates is necessary to protect corrections staff as well as other inmates, especially after an altercation. He says administrative segregation generally only lasts for several weeks, to give inmates a chance to cool off and officers a chance to figure out what's at the root of the problem.

But there is currently an inmate in segregation who has been on the SMU for about 18 months. Unit Manager Ursula Charleton says he would be at risk of harm by other prisoners. But she acknowledges that the prison could do a better job providing oversight of segregation and offering prisoners incentives to work off their time.

"I think we can improve the progressions system," she says. "I think we can look again at our reviews. Are we being as efficient as we can be? Looking at our staff roles, being more creative about incentives and privileges. I think we can get to some places that we all want to get to without a bill."

But the sponsor of the bill before the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee says existing policies aren't working. "There are policies that exist that don't have the weight of statute," says Rep. Jim Schatz, of Blue Hill.

Schatz told committee members that his bill is not meant as a slight against the hard working people in the Department of Corrections. He says it's simply designed to improve how segregation review, and other policies, are carried out. "I can almost assure you that those policies are not religiously adhered to, and of course the consequences of not following the policy tend to be more disciplinary action."

Tomorrow: a look at how that discipline known as solitary confinement affects prisoners over the long term and what psychiatrists who have studied them have to say about it.