Maine profile    Tweet this

Sections

Charts & graphs

The cost of incarceration

Reports & briefings

COVID-19

Other resources

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

Also see these Maine graphs:

• 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

In the U.S., incarceration extends beyond prisons and local jails to include other systems of confinement. The U.S. and state incarceration rates in this graph include people held by these other parts of the justice system, so they may be slightly higher than the commonly reported incarceration rates that only include prisons and jails. Details on the data are available in States of Incarceration: The Global Context. We also have a version of this graph focusing on the incarceration of women.

People of color are overrepresented in prisons and jails

See also our detailed graphs about Whites, Blacks, and American Indians/Native Americans in Maine 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.

Our other articles about Maine

• 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
• New data: Low incomes - but high fees - for people on probation in Maine
• 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?

Prison gerrymandering in Maine

• Visit our campaign page
• 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

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.

Other resources

• Research on Maine in our Research Library