The Detention Center
York County Jail
- Operated byYork County Sheriff's Office — Corrections Division
- Who runs itLori J. Marks — Major, Jail Administrator, York County Jail, appointed by the Approved by vote of the York County Commissioners on November 6, 2024, on the recommendation of the elected Sheriff — the sheriff remains the statutory jailer in Maine. Marks replaced Nathan Thayer, who left in May 2024 to become warden of the Maine State Prison.
- Jail address1 Layman Way, Alfred, ME 04002
- Jail phone(207) 324-1113
- Published capacityConflicting county figures: 396 (Corrections page), 350 (Sheriff's Office page), 294 beds (county news release, 3/5/2026)
- PopulationNo current count published; 'hovers around 240' in a county news post of 11/9/2024
- Supervision modelDirect supervision facility; second-largest jail in Maine per the county
- Intakes 20252,133 arrestees processed
- Use of force 202559 incidents; 22 reported physical attacks by inmates
- Corrections staffAbout 50 full-time correctional officers plus roughly two dozen reserves (11/2024)
- FY25 jail expenditures$13,977,739 reported to Maine DOC (unaudited)
- FY25 boarding revenue$987,685 reported to Maine DOC — the county holds other agencies' prisoners but publishes no contract or rate
- FY25 County Jail Operations Fund$2,199,986 from the state; $663,796 (30.17%) spent on community corrections
- FY25 prisoner bed days (county of origin)57,713 of 568,064 statewide
- Year built / original cost / fundingNot found — checked the Corrections page, Sheriff's Office page, the county archive jail page, the Finance page and its FY23–FY27 budget PDFs, the FAQ and the YCSO 2025 Annual Report
Source: York County Maine Government — Corrections · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓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
- ✗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 builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsPublished figures conflict: 396 (county Corrections page), 350 (county Sheriff's Office page), 294 beds (county news release of 3/5/2026 reporting the state inspection), 'nearly 300' (county news post of 11/9/2024)
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff William L. King, Jr.
- Runs the jailYes — in Maine the elected sheriff has custody and charge of the county jail (30-A M.R.S. § 1501)
- Day-to-day jail managementMajor Lori J. Marks, Jail Administrator, under the Sheriff
- ElectedFirst elected 2014; re-elected 2018 and 2022 (Maine Sheriffs' Association)
- AlsoPolice Services for 14 York County towns with no full-time police department, civil process and court security
- Office1 Layman Way, Alfred, ME 04002 — (207) 324-1113
Still needed
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: York County Sheriff's Office — Leadership Team · 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 . Initial bail at the jail is set by a bail commissioner, not a judge: the county's own 2025 Annual Report describes intake staff setting bail amounts and conditions and notifying the bail commissioner.
Biddeford District Court (District Court Region 1), York Judicial Center, 515 Elm Street, Biddeford
- Roster not published per county — the Maine Judicial Branch links only to a statewide list of District Court judges
York County Superior Court, 515 Elm Street, Biddeford
- Roster not published per county — the site links only to a statewide list of Superior Court justices
Still needed
- 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
- The county names its jail plainly and publishes a Corrections page for it: https://www.yorkcountymaine.gov/corrections
- Capacity marked 'no': beds are published but the three county pages give three different numbers (396, 350, 294), and no current or average daily population is published anywhere on the county site. The only population figure the county has ever published is 'hovers around 240' in a November 2024 news post.
- Budget marked 'yes': the YCSO 2025 Annual Report publishes a Corrections Budget of $14,782,996 with line items (prescriptions $350,000, food services $510,000, inmate medical $2,230,000 contract, education $60,000 and others). The county Finance page also publishes full FY23–FY27 budget PDFs, whose general fund summary carries a 'JAIL CAP (ASSESSMENT)' line — $11,677,322 in FY26 and $12,519,071 proposed for FY27: https://www.yorkcountymaine.gov/finance
- Inspections marked 'yes': the county published a news release on 3/5/2026 reporting the York County Jail scored 100% on its biennial Maine DOC inspection — all 145 mandatory and all 95 essential standards — the first perfect score for the facility; the inspection was conducted in November 2025. The Corrections page separately claims 'over 95%' mandatory and 'over 97%' essential compliance from earlier biennium inspections. The county publishes the results but not the inspection report itself.
- PREA marked 'no': the county publishes its approved PREA policy (https://www.yorkcountymaine.gov/_files/ugd/4237e6_5d531acb608a432d92d2f48c8d33c199.pdf) and a 2023 Annual PREA Report (https://www.yorkcountymaine.gov/_files/ugd/4237e6_bfa4a5841ed14e18b87252e0d5835a0e.pdf), but no PREA audit report or audit result. The 2023 annual report states only that a 'PREA audit was initiated to obtain initial PREA certification and compliance'; the 3/5/2026 news release says the jail achieved PREA compliance during 2024. No audit findings are posted.
- Contracts marked 'no': the county reported $987,685 in boarding revenue to the Maine DOC for FY25, so it holds prisoners for other agencies, but no boarding contract or per-diem rate is published on the county site. The commissioners did publicly approve jail vendor contracts — Trinity Services Group (food service) and Keefe Commissary Network (commissary) in August 2025 — but the dollar figures were left to be negotiated: https://www.yorkcountymaine.gov/post/commissioners-okay-opioid-settlement-york-county-jail-vendors-more-in-busy-business-session
- Fees marked 'no': the county archive commissary page directs deposits to TouchPay (facility locator #204002) and a lobby kiosk but publishes no commissary prices; no phone or video visit rates appear anywhere on the county site: https://www.archive.yorkcountymaine.gov/commissary
- Roster marked 'no': no inmate lookup, roster or VINE link appears on the Corrections page, the Sheriff's Office page or the county archive jail page. Bond info marked 'no': no bail posting guidance appears on the county site or its FAQ.
- Deaths marked 'no': no in-custody death is published on the county site. The Maine DOC 2025 Report on Jails lists five in-custody death reviews for November 2024–September 2025 — Washington, Franklin, Kennebec, Androscoggin and Cumberland — and none for York.
- The jail has a statutory Board of Visitors: seven citizen volunteers appointed by Sheriff King to inspect the jail and recommend on conditions annually under 30-A M.R.S. § 1651. The county publishes the membership but no board findings, and the listed meeting dates on the page are from 2024: https://www.yorkcountymaine.gov/jail-board-of-visitors
- The county keeps an older website live as an archive at https://archive.yorkcountymaine.gov — its jail page (https://www.archive.yorkcountymaine.gov/york-county-jail) still states a 300-inmate capacity and a 99.2% Maine DOC rating, and it is the source that identifies 1 Layman Way, Alfred as the sheriff and jail address.
- York County jail governance: the sheriff is the statutory jailer, but the jail administrator's appointment was voted by the county commissioners, and the corrections budget is set through the county budget process and capped by the state jail tax cap under 34-A M.R.S. § 1210-E.
- Five county commissioners elected by district — unusual for Maine, where most counties have three: Richard R. Dutremble (District 2, Chair), Robert L. Andrews (District 1, Vice Chair), Justin Chenette (District 3), Donna Ring (District 4), Richard Clark (District 5). Maine counties have no state-legislator budget delegation; York County's budget is adopted with a 15-member Budget Committee — two elected municipal officials and one public member from each of the five districts, chosen at municipal caucuses. County Manager: Gregory Zinser.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in York 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.
These offices are on your ballot
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