Thank you,
—Peter Wagner, Executive Director
Donate
Maine profile
- Sections
- Charts & graphs
- The cost of incarceration
- Reports & briefings
- Other resources
- Prison gerrymandering
- COVID-19
Maine has an incarceration rate of 328 per 100,000 people (including prisons, jails, immigration detention, and juvenile justice facilities), meaning that it locks up a higher percentage of its people than almost any democracy on earth. Read on to learn more about who is incarcerated in Maine and why.
3,500 people from Maine are behind bars
Additionally, the number of people impacted by county and city jails in Maine is much larger than the graph above would suggest, because people cycle through local jails relatively quickly. Each year, at least 14,000 different people are booked into local jails in Maine.
Rates of imprisonment have grown dramatically in the last 40 years
- total numbers rather than rates.
- Women’s prisons: Incarceration Rates | Total Population
- Men’s prisons: Incarceration Rates | Total Population
Today, Maine’s incarceration rates stand out internationally
People of color are overrepresented in prisons and jails
Maine's criminal justice system is more than just its prisons and jails
The high cost of being incarcerated in Maine
Prisons and jails in Maine are increasingly shifting the cost of incarceration to people behind bars and their families, hiding the true economic costs of mass incarceration:
- Jails in Maine charge up to $3.15 for a 15-minute phone call, reaping profits for companies, while prisons charge $1.35 for a 15-minute call.
- Maine suspended its $5 medical copay in prisons at the beginning of the pandemic for flu related medical visits — but should eliminate them entirely.
- Maine prisons charge families up to a 12% fee to transfer money to an incarcerated loved one.
- People in Maine prisons must have a zero balance in their account to receive basic hygiene items, writing supplies, and free legal photocopies.
- People in Maine prisons earn as little as 58¢ an hour for their work.
- The hidden costs in Maine’s “no-cost” prison tablet contract
- Maine does not offer e-messaging in prisons.
- New data: Low incomes — but high fees — for people on probation in Maine
Our other articles about Maine
- Maine's choice to criminalize "failure to appear" may be hurting public safety
- The cost of incarcerating older people is incredibly high, and their risk of reincarceration is incredibly low, yet 13% of people in Maine prisons are over the age of 55. Why is the state keeping so many older people locked up?
- Prisons in Northeastern states, like Maine, have seen the greatest increase in deaths during heatwaves.
- Maine makes it difficult or even risky for incarcerated journalists to tell their stories.
- Maine prisons release about 755 people every year
- Only 24 people in Maine prisons received commutations between 2005 and 2021, and none during the COVID-19 pandemic
- We graded the parole release systems of all 50 states - Maine gets an F-
- Who's helping the 5,581 women released from Maine correctional facilities each year?
Other resources
- Research on Maine in our Research Library
Prison gerrymandering in Maine
- Governor Janet Mills signed a measure in June 2023 ending prison gerrymandering in legislative redistricting.
- Prison-based gerrymandering costs Maine 8th graders local schooling
- Phantom Constituents in Maine’s Regional School Unit 13: How the Census Bureau’s outdated method of counting prisoners harms democracy
- For more information, visit our campaign page.
Data on COVID-19 in Maine jails and prisons
We gave Maine a failing grade in September 2021 for its response to the coronavirus in prisons, noting that Maine failed to utilize one of the most obvious, and easiest, tools for reducing the prison population — stopping prison admissions for technical violations of probation and parole (which are not crimes).
For more detail, see our report States of Emergency.
