The Detention Center
Knox County Jail
- Operated byKnox County Sheriff's Office
- Who runs itCaptain Robert Wood, Jr. — Corrections Administrator, Knox County Jail (Lieutenant Autumn Dinsmore; Sgt. Ben Raven, transport; Deputy David Frick, diversion), 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 address327 Park Street, Rockland, ME 04841; (207) 594-0430
- Year built1980 (stated on the Sheriff's Office Corrections page)
- What it is nowA 72-hour holding facility. Knox County's long-term incarcerated population is housed at Two Bridges Regional Jail, 522 Bath Road, Wiscasset
- When that changedKnox County commissioners voted unanimously on 10 November 2025 to send inmates to Two Bridges; the contract runs 1 January 2026 to 1 January 2027, terminable by either side on 120 days' written notice
- What Knox pays$293,450 per month, $3,521,400 a year, against roughly $7 million to run the Rockland jail itself (PenBay Pilot)
- Staff effectJail staffing fell from 41 to 19; a consultant found the Rockland building sound for another 15–25 years but needing about $1.5 million a year in maintenance
- WhyThe county Budget Committee lacked a quorum and could not approve a 2026 budget; the jail had sought a 22% increase
- Rated capacityNot found — no bed count is published by the county; the Corrections page, the county Sheriff's Office page and the approved county budgets were checked
Source: Knox County Sheriff's Office — Corrections · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✗How to post bond — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built1980
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot found
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Patrick W. Polky
- 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 the sheriff appoints
- How he took officeAppointed by Governor Janet Mills on 28 July 2022 to finish the unexpired term, then elected in November 2022; took office as elected sheriff 1 January 2023
- Office301 Park Street, Rockland, ME 04841; (207) 594-0429
- Chief DeputyCurt Andrick
- Prior serviceCamden Police 1999–2014, Knox County Sheriff's Office contract deputy 2014, Chief Deputy 2019
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Knox County Sheriff's Office — Sheriff · 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 has a unified state trial court: the Superior Court and the District Court are state courts that sit in county courthouses 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 are not county employees; they charge a statutory fee on top of the bail amount.
Rockland District Court, 62 Union Street, Rockland — the District Court serving Knox County (Clerk: Jill Miller)
- Hon. Sarah Gilbert
Knox County Superior Court, 62 Union Street, Rockland (Clerk: Jill Miller)
- No resident justice is assigned to Rockland on the Judicial Branch roster; Superior Court justices ride to Knox County from other chambers
- 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
- Knox County is the newest of Maine's 72-hour holding facilities: it converted on 1 January 2026, after the 2025 Maine DOC Report on Jails was written, so Knox still appears in state documents as a county with a full-service jail and does not appear in the 2025 inspection table at all.
- Bond info marked no: the Corrections page says only 'call the jail at (207) 594-0430 for the type of bond' and that a bond is set by a court-approved schedule. It does not say where, when or how bail is posted, or what the bail commissioner's fee is. Because Knox inmates are now held at Two Bridges, the practical bail instructions are on the Two Bridges site, not the county's.
- Roster marked no: no in-custody list is published on knoxsheriff.me or knoxcountymaine.gov.
- Inspections marked no: the county publishes no Maine DOC inspection result and no Board of Visitors report.
- Contracts marked no: Knox is now the paying party rather than the host. The $293,450-per-month Two Bridges agreement is reported in the press and appears in commission business, but the county does not publish the contract itself on its website.
- Fees marked no: no phone, video-visit or commissary rates are published.
- Three county commissioners elected by district to four-year terms: District 1 Edward B. Glaser (Chair, term to 12/31/2026), District 2 Morgan E. F. Hynd (Vice Chair, term to 12/31/2028), District 3 Marc J. Ratner (term to 12/31/2028). The Board meets at 2:00 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month at 62 Union Street, Rockland, and streams meetings on YouTube. Note: the 2026 Maine County Commissioners Association directory swaps the district numbers of Hynd and Ratner; the district town lists on the county's own page are used here. The county budget is adopted through a Budget Committee — a lack of quorum on that committee in late 2025 is what forced the jail decision.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Knox 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