Maine Revised Statutes Title 30-A. Municipalities and Counties § 1658. Additional accommodations

The county commissioners may make such additions in workshops, fences and other suitable accommodations in, adjoining or appurtenant to the jails in the several counties as may be found necessary for the safekeeping, governing and employing of offenders committed to the jails by authority of the State or the United States. For the better employing of these offenders, they may lease or purchase necessary lands or buildings anywhere within their respective counties and may authorize the employment on those lands for the benefit of the county or of dependent families of prisoners committed for crime, as provided in section 1601. Whenever the county commissioners determine that the use of the land and buildings is unnecessary for that use, they may sell and dispose of the land and buildings in the manner required by law. The county commissioners may raise by loan of their respective counties, or otherwise, a total sum not exceeding $5,000 to make those purchases, alterations and improvements, and may expend so much of that amount as is necessary.

The county commissioners may purchase, lease, contract or enter into agreements for the use of facilities to house minimum security prisoners who have been sentenced to the county jail. These prisoners must be involved in restitution, work or educational release, or rehabilitative programs. The funds to purchase, lease or contract for these facilities and to provide any programs in these facilities may be taken from the funds received by the counties pursuant to Title 34-A, section 1210-E. Any facilities used to house prisoners pursuant to the authority granted by this section are subject to standards established by the Department of Corrections pursuant to Title 34-A, section 1208-A.