The Detention Center
Androscoggin County Jail
- Operated byAndroscoggin County Sheriff's Office
- Who runs itLane Feldman — Major, Jail Administrator, Androscoggin County Jail (Assistant Jail Administrator: Captain George Carter), appointed by the The elected Sheriff — Maine has no commissioner-appointed jail superintendent; 30-A M.R.S. § 1501 makes the sheriff the jailer
- Jail address40 Pleasant Street, Auburn, ME 04210; (207) 753-2500 ext. 1992
- Rated capacity160 inmates (2025 Board of Visitors Annual Report)
- Actual populationAverage 180 to 190 inmates in 2025 — above rated capacity
- ThroughputApproximately 3,003 inmates processed in 2025
- StaffApproximately 64 corrections officers and civilians; 8 sergeants, 6 corporals
- AccreditationPREA certified and accredited by the American Correctional Association (2025 Board of Visitors report)
- MedicalCorrectional Psychiatric Services and Healthcare, 24-hour care; Health Services Administrator Desiree Prosser
- MDOC inspection 2025100% of mandatory standards and 98.9% of desirable standards, inspected 6/16/25-6/17/25
- Year builtNot found — no construction date is published by the county; the Board of Visitors reports, the County Jail page and the jail audited financial statements were checked
Source: Androscoggin County Jail Board of Visitors Annual Report 2025 (PDF) · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
7/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✓PREA audits
- ✓Independent inspection
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✓Phone, video and commissary rates
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds160 rated capacity (2025 Board of Visitors Annual Report); actual average population 180-190
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Eric G. Samson
- Runs the jailYes — in Maine the elected sheriff has custody and charge of the jail (30-A M.R.S. § 1501); day-to-day operation is delegated to a Jail Administrator
- Party and termDemocrat, Auburn; four-year term expiring December 31, 2026
- Office2 Turner Street, Auburn, ME 04210; (207) 753-2500
- Chief DeputyWilliam Gagne
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Androscoggin County — Sheriff / Elected Officials · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Judges in Maine are state judicial officers, not county officials, and they are appointed, not elected. Superior Court justices and District Court judges are nominated by the Governor, reviewed by the Legislature's Judiciary Committee and confirmed by the Maine Senate, and serve renewable seven-year terms (Maine Judicial Branch report to the Legislature, https://legislature.maine.gov/doc/9335). Maine has a unified state trial court: the Superior Court and District Court are state courts sitting in county courthouses that the county maintains, but the county does not choose the judges and cannot remove them. Unlike Texas and Oklahoma, no judge who sets bail in this county appears on a county ballot. Bail in Maine is also routinely set outside court hours by bail commissioners, who are appointed by the Judicial Branch and charge a statutory fee ($60 at the Androscoggin County Jail) on top of the bail amount.
Lewiston District Court (71 Lisbon Street, Lewiston) — the District Court serving Androscoggin County
- Hon. Sarah Churchill
- Hon. Andrew Robinson
- Hon. Katherine Tierney
- Hon. Susan Oram (active retired)
Androscoggin County Superior Court (2 Turner Street, Auburn; justices listed at the Androscoggin County Court, 71 Lisbon Street, Lewiston)
- Hon. Jennifer Archer
- Hon. Julia G. Pitney
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-23
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Androscoggin is the strongest publisher in this group: it posts PREA annual reports AND PREA facility audit reports (2021 and 2024) in an archive, Board of Visitors annual reports for 2023, 2024 and 2025, separate Jail Audited Financial Statements back to 2015, county budgets back to 2015, plain-language bail instructions, and an actual rate sheet for inmate communications.
- Fees are genuinely published, with numbers: the county posts the ICSolutions rate sheet showing calls at $0.09 per minute plus tax, voicemail messages at $1.00 per 60-second message, email/photo messages at $0.25 each, and video visitation at $0.14 per minute. That is more than most counties in either state disclose.
- The jail runs over its rated capacity: 160 beds rated, 180-190 average population, per the county's own Board of Visitors report.
- No public in-custody roster is published by the county. Third-party sites publish Androscoggin rosters; the county itself does not, and the Booking & Bail page directs callers to phone the jail for charges and bail amounts.
- No death in custody is published on any county page or in the Board of Visitors reports reviewed.
- No contract to hold other agencies' prisoners is published. The Alternative Sentencing Program accepts participants from throughout the state, but no rates are posted.
- The Board of Visitors report cites 30-A M.R.S. § 1651 and notes the county commissioners' statutory duty to examine the jail — the inspection is carried out through the Board of Visitors.
- Seven county commissioners elected by district to four-year terms under the Androscoggin County Charter — an unusually large board for Maine, where three is the norm. Chair Andrew Lewis (D5), Vice-Chair Jane Pentheny (D6), Shukri Abdirahman (D1), Roland Poirier (D2), Brian Ames (D3), Garrett Mason (D4), Sally A. Christner (D7). The Board adopts the county and jail budgets with a Budget Committee; regular meetings are the third Wednesday of each month at 5:15 p.m. at 2 Turner Street, Auburn.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Androscoggin County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
In Maine your municipal clerk runs the polling place. Links from vote.gov and USA.gov.
Names verified 2026-08-23 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered