Maine History Online

Prisons for the Unruly

Whipping and branding, along with stocks, gallows, and related structures, allowed early American communities to punish offenders visibly and publicly. Such obvious marks and displays may have deterred crime, or at least the brands and scars helped identify thieves and runaways.

Maine engaged in these public humiliations and executions into the 19th century until new methods and philosophies gained ground in the region and reformed such practices.

The 19th century, particularly the second two thirds, spawned innumerable efforts to both institutionalize and rehabilitate the nation's criminals before they congealed into a hardened, irredeemable class.

Combining labor with imprisonment, for example, added the virtue of productivity to the necessity of punishment. Nineteenth-century jails and prisons often included farming and the mechanical arts as part of their practical rehabilitative strategies, and prison industries continue today (inmates at the Bucks Harbor prison, for example, make blue jeans and reupholster furniture).

Nearly every town of size, and certainly all the shire towns, had jails. The Maine State Prison opened in 1824 in Thomaston. It housed a few hundred inmates at a time, many of whom worked onsite in the limestone quarry. The few female prisoners in state custody were housed and fed separately from the men.

The state also has operated a number of other correctional facilities. The Maine Correctional Center in Windham was established in 1919. Originally called the Reformatory for Men, it was later named the Men's Correctional Center and housed men as well as women. The state opened several other correctional facilities in the 1980s.

Intended as a fine example of prevailing thought about discipline and routine, the Maine State Prison served both to separate the criminal from the outside world and the outside world from the criminal. Then commissioner of the prison, James G. Blaine, asserted in 1859 that, "events of current interest, and glimpses of the outer world, have a tendency to unsettle the convict's mind and render him restless and uneasy" and therefore more difficult to deal with.

Blaine's methods seem to have won the approval of the state, and his successors carried on accordingly. An 1891 report by then Governor Edwin C. Burleigh commended the prison for the efficiency and resourcefulness that rendered it self-supporting by 1886. The same report went on to praise the "introduction of reformatory methods," which, according to the warden, had met with great success:

Everything that can be done towards reclaiming men from the ways of crime and making them respectable members of society, will merit the cordial approval and cooperation of all who have at heart the highest interests of the State.

The highest interests of the state continue to be met insofar as the prison continues to exist. Burned and rebuilt in 1923, the prison was ultimately torn down in 2002, and the prisoners relocated to a new facility in Warren.

For younger people in trouble, it was customary to combine the institutions of school and jail into industrial or reform schools to better rehabilitate misguided youth, and provide supervision, discipline, and training for the workforce.

Common crimes included vagrancy, truancy, and the catch-alls "malicious mischief" and "riotous conduct." Most often, boys were sent to nearby reform schools, although habitual truants might be sent to the State School for Boys in South Portland, while girls, particularly those at risk of succumbing to immoral proclivities, were sent to industrial schools in Eastport, Hallowell, and other towns.

The State Reform School for Boys, later named the State School for Boys, was established in 1853 "for the instruction, employment, and reform of juvenile offenders" ages 8 to 16. Residents were put to farming and brick making in an effort to make them useful and productive citizens. A report noted:

The highly credible work that has been done by this institution is shown by the fact that about seventy-five percent of the boys that have gone forth from it have become respectable and law abiding citizens, a record that speaks more eloquently than words for the excellence of its management.

The Maine Industrial School for Girls located in Hallowell, renamed the Stevens School for Girls in 1915, was incorporated by the Maine Legislature in 1872 to:

act as a guardian to the person of any girls who, between the ages of seven and fifteen years, shall be committed to its charge according to law, for the physical, mental and moral training of such girl, which guardianship of such girl shall supersede any other guardianship of parents or guardians during the time that such girl is under the charge of this corporation.

Officials noted that the school "is not a place of punishment, to which its inmates are sent as criminals – but a home for the friendless, neglected and vagrant children of the state …"

With "its efforts" aligned "upon a broad, humane and philanthropic plane," the school continued to garner praise, along with new residents, over subsequent decades.

Despite their missions, expectations, and claims it remains debatable whether these institutions truly rehabilitated their charges. At the very least such establishments rounded up the unruly, housed and fed them, and put them to work for a specified time.

Some of the "crimes" for which youths were incarcerated – truancy and vagrancy for example – are no longer crimes. The state continues to operate institutions for youths, but also has stressed community intervention and treatment programs, much as has happened with other institutions.