Life in Prison

Content warning: This topic includes several sources that deal with death.

Summary: In this lesson, you will look at primary sources from different time periods to investigate the experience of being in Maine prisons.

Share whatever information from this introduction you feel will help provide context for your students before they investigate the primary sources.

Introduction

For as long as there have been laws in Maine, people have broken the laws. Today, some things are legal that used to be illegal. The opposite is true as well – laws change to keep up with modern life.

Just as laws change, so do punishments. If you’re caught breaking the law you might get a warning (like if you’re driving a little over the speed limit) or a fine (like if you’re caught littering). You might be assigned community service, meaning you work on a project to help others. Probation is when you are free but must follow certain rules. More serious crimes can result in incarceration, meaning imprisonment or captivity in a jail or prison.

Prisons and jails exist for a few reasons. They are a punishment for people who did something wrong. In some cases, they are supposed to help people gain new skills and priorities. At their most basic level, they are meant to keep people from doing harm to the rest of society. For as long as prisons have existed, people have debated how they should be run, and whether they are effective or humane.

Incarceration is complicated. For some people, it is a chance to turn their lives around. For other people, it damages them for the rest of their lives. It might also be a mixture of things. Another complication is that not everyone who is imprisoned should be. Many people throughout history have been wrongfully convicted, meaning they are innocent of the crime that put them in jail. However, prisons make many members of the public feel safe – especially victims of violent crime.

Throughout history, certain groups of people have been more likely to serve jail time. Laws, judges, juries, and police officers have persecuted people based on their race, class, or sexual orientation. Some of that has changed with time, but there are still inequalities today. In Maine, African Americans and Native Americans are more likely to be sent to prison than white people. The criminal justice system is not always fair, and people with more money and power can sometimes avoid punishments. There are many complicated reasons for this, and we encourage you to do some digging to learn more!

Life and Death in the Maine State Prison

Maine’s first state prison was founded in Thomaston in 1824. At first, the cells were holes dug into the ground and covered with metal grates. Prisoners were held in solitary confinement, so they would be completely alone to think about their crimes. Later, prisoners had to do hard labor in the prison’s quarry. The prison was rebuilt over the years, and conditions changed many times.

These sources will show you different sides of life at the Maine State Prison. The prison moved to Warren, Maine in 2002 to make room for the increasing numbers of people being incarcerated. It is a maximum-security prison.

The harder the conditions of life in prison, the more dangerous it was to be there. Over the decades, many prisoners died and were buried in a cemetery on the prison grounds. The greatest numbers of deaths were the result of pandemics.

Executions were never common in Maine, but those who were executed spent time at the Maine State Prison. The death penalty was abolished in 1876, re-established in 1883, and again abolished in 1887 because of a botched execution. Later efforts in the legislature to reinstate the death penalty failed.

The Lesson:

1. Present the introductory information above to your students to give them context for the lesson. Depending on the class, they could read the introduction as a homework assignment, or you could go over it together as a class.
2. Students choose (or the teacher assigns) one or more of the primary sources to work with.
3. Without first seeing the source label information, students practice their observation and analysis skills to complete an Analysis Worksheet for each one. They can make educated guesses using whatever information they find in the sources. Note – This can be completed as a class, individually, or in small groups.
4. Discuss the sources as a class. What source did you work with? What did you learn from it?What questions do you have? How do the different sources connect to the theme, or to each other?
5. Present the source label information (the “answers”) to the students. Were you surprised by anything you learned? Have you found more connections between the different sources?
6. Optional: use the recommended activity prompts and reflection questions for further discussion.

Optional Activity:

There have been many pandemics throughout history. These pandemics claimed a lot of lives, especially in places where people lived close together, such as in prisons.

If you have not already, look at Joseph W. Kerr’s grave marker, which can be found in the primary sources for this theme.

Joseph was an inmate at the Maine State Prison in Thomaston. He died from tuberculosis, a deadly lung disease, in 1890. This was during the global tuberculosis pandemic that took place during the 1800s and 1900s.

We learned a lot about pandemics because of COVID-19. While not every pandemic is the same, based on what we know about safety practices for COVID-19, write a letter to the warden of the prison at the time. First, acknowledge why it might be difficult for prisons to enforce good safety practices. Then, make recommendations about how to make the prison safer during a pandemic.

Reflection questions (for class discussion or written assignment):

• Based on these sources, how would you describe life in prison?
• In this primary source set, we see views of prison life from a couple different perspectives. What differences and similarities did you notice between these perspectives?
• Historically, there have been times where people tried to cover up the reality of prison conditions in the United States. Why do you think this happened?
• Based on these sources, do you think prison conditions should have been better? If so, how?
• Do you think prisons are a good way to punish people who commit crimes? Why or why not?

Freedom & Captivity Primary Source Sets developed in collaboration between the Maine State Archives, Maine State Library, and Maine State Museum.