The Detention Center
Somerset County Jail
- Operated bySomerset County Sheriff's Office
- Who runs itMaj. Matt Magnusson — Major, Corrections — Somerset County Sheriff's Office, appointed by the The elected Sheriff (the sheriff is the statutory jailer in Maine)
- Jail address131 E Madison Rd, Madison, ME 04950
- Rated capacity234
- Budgeted capacity192
- OpenedPopulation moved into the current facility on October 30, 2008
- Who is heldSomerset County pre-arraignment and convicted inmates, and federal inmates
- Construction cost / fundingNot found — the sheriff's facility page, the county site and the FY2026 budget PDF were checked
Source: Somerset County Sheriff's Office — Our Facility · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✓PREA audits
- ✗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 built2008 — inmates moved into the current facility October 30, 2008
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsRated capacity 234; budgeted capacity 192
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Dale Lancaster
- Runs the jailYes — in Maine the elected sheriff has custody and charge of the county jail (30-A M.R.S. § 1501)
- Corrections commandMaj. Matt Magnusson, Capt. Shannon Pooler, Capt. Shanna A. Brown, Staff Sgt. Peter Moulton
- NotableThe jail holds federal inmates and boards sentenced inmates for Waldo County
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Somerset County Sheriff's Office — Command Staff · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Maine has a unified state trial court. District Court judges and Superior Court justices are nominated by the Governor and confirmed by the Maine Senate for seven-year terms. They are not elected and they are not county officials — a real difference from Texas and Oklahoma. Source: https://ballotpedia.org/Judicial_selection_in_Maine
Skowhegan District Court (District Court Region 4)
- Roster not published per county — the Maine Judicial Branch does not publish a judge roster for individual court locations
Somerset County Superior Court
- Roster not published per county — only a statewide list of Superior Court justices is published
- 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
- Somerset publishes the most of any county in this group: a named facility page with capacity, a live inmate roster (https://somerset-so-me.zuercherportal.com/#/inmates), a PREA audit report, and a jail handbook.
- The published PREA audit is old — the only report linked is the final report dated December 28, 2017: https://somersetso.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/FINAL_REPORT_2017.12.28_PREA.pdf
- 'budget' scored yes — the county publishes a full FY2026 proposed budget PDF at https://somersetcountyme.gov/wp-content/uploads/Somerset-County-FY-2026-Proposed-Budget-rotated-1.pdf. That PDF is a rotated scan with no machine-readable text, so the corrections line item could not be read and verified.
- 'bond_info' scored no. The jail handbook (https://somersetso.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/County_Jail_Handbook.pdf) was opened in full and contains no bail-posting instructions; the only dollar figures in it are disciplinary fines of $25 (major) and $10 (minor).
- 'fees' scored no. https://somersetso.org/corrections/contacting-inmates/ names Securus for video visitation and digital mail and says video costs are 'comparable to phone call rates', but publishes no phone, video or commissary rate.
- 'contracts' scored no. The county states the jail houses federal inmates and it boards sentenced inmates for Waldo County, but publishes no contract and no rate. The Waldo boarding rate was reported in the press in January 2026 as $95 per day per male inmate and $135 per day per female inmate on a 40-bed flat rate: https://www.midcoastvillager.com/news/waldo-county-reaches-new-jail-boarding-deal-with-somerset-county/article_8f911536-e766-4137-9764-20773e628e19.html
- Somerset County Jail does not appear in the inspection table of the 2025 MDOC Report on Jails, which lists inspections of 18 facilities from November 2024 to September 2025. No county-published inspection result was found either.
- MCCA's 2026 Directory of Maine Counties lists 'Major Michael Welsh' as Somerset's jail administrator; the Sheriff's Office command-staff page lists Maj. Matt Magnusson as Major, Corrections. The Sheriff's Office page is used here as the more direct source.
- Five county commissioners elected by district — unusually large for Maine: Robert Sezak (District 1), Don Skillings (District 2), Scott Seekins (District 3), John Alsop (District 4), Joel Stetkis (District 5). County Administrator Tim Curtis. A Budget Committee reviews the budget; there is no state-legislator budget delegation in Maine.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Somerset 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