Courtesy of Bloomsbury
By Rod Bacon
A local freelance writer has collaborated with a criminal corrections professional on a book detailing an innovative approach to reducing recidivism among the prison population.
Christine Graf, a longtime resident of Malta, partnered with Commissioner of the Maine Department of Corrections Randall Liberty to co-author “Liberty’s Prison: The Inmate’s Son Who Radically Reformed an American Prison.”
Graf learned about Liberty in 2017 when she worked part time for a nonprofit that served veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She was also a regular contributor to the PTSD Journal.
Liberty grew up in extreme poverty living with his mother and three brothers in a trailer in Clinton, Maine. His alcoholic father, who had an extensive rap sheet, abused his mother and served multiple prison sentences, one of which was at the Maine State Prison in Thomaston. This facility would later play a pivotal role in Liberty’s law enforcement career.
While still in high school he enrolled in the United States Army’s delayed entry program, which led to him serving on active duty from 1982-85. He had three separate assignments as a military policeman as well as training as a paratrooper. His last posting was in Fort Riley, Kansas, where he served in a last corrections capacity. After his tour of duty he remained in the Army National Guard for 21 years.
“While I was a military policeman I enjoyed it but I always longed for the infantry,” he said.
He joined a Maine-based mountain infantry unit, serving in various capacities around the world for seven years. Following that he was a drill sergeant and a chief instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
“In 2004 General David Petraeus was looking for volunteers to train Iraqi soldiers and then go into combat with them,” Liberty said.
He answered that call, flying to Kuwait, then Baghdad, and finally to a town on the Iranian border where he and nine other volunteers recruited and trained 772 Iraqui soldiers for six weeks. Then the Second Battle of Fallujah kicked off, and Liberty and his battalion of Iraqis fought with the 1st Marine Division for 10 months.
Liberty returned from this experience suffering from PTSD and Graf, learning about him through her work with the nonprofit organization, thought he would be a good subject for an article for the journal to which she contributed.
“The more I learned about him the more I thought that this was not an article, this was a book,” she said.
What she learned through research and personal interviews was that Liberty had extensive experience in law enforcement as a front-line officer, prison warden, and commissioner of corrections.
Liberty’s civilian career in law enforcement started after he completed his Army tour of duty in 1985. He was hired by a local police department in addition to being assigned as a corrections officer at the Somerset County Jail in Madison.
“The sheriff said he’d be glad to hire me and asked if I had any questions. I asked him if he knew that my father was in that jail,” he said. “I was hired and not only was my father in that jail he was in my unit, so I ended up guarding him for three months.”
During this time he attended the University of Maine at Augusta, earning an associate degree in criminal justice. He later earned a bachelor’s in public administration from that school and a master’s in management and leadership from Liberty University in Virginia.
When he finished at the University of Maine he was hired by the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office, where he initially served as a patrolman and later as a rescue diver. He is certified in night, heat, rapid water, and under-the-ice rescues as well as being a certified underwater investigator. Over the years he pulled 19 potential drowning victims from under the ice.
He was also a canine handler and drug investigator.
While at the sheriff’s office he rose through the ranks from patrolman to sergeant to staff sergeant to major, eventually becoming chief. He held that position for five years before being elected sheriff, serving for nine years.
He was president of the Maine Sheriff’s Association and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy.
In 2015 the commissioner of corrections asked if he was interested in becoming the warden at Maine State Prison. He retired from the sheriff’s office and accepted the position, serving for three years.
“When I got there we were still using what many would consider solitary confinement,” he said. “We were using mace, OC (Oleoresin Capsicum or pepper spray). It was very hands-on, with a lot of assaults-on-staff and residents-on-residents. We were shooting residents with rubber bullets. It was a very difficult time.”
Liberty set about changing the prison’s culture. Using proven methods employed by corrections officials in Norway, he implemented policies that emphasized rehabilitation instead of punishment that might lead to recidivism.
He created a veterans’ pod that allowed him to concentrate resources from the Veterans Administration. An American Legion post was launched in the unit, and dogs were brought in to be trained by the residents as service dogs for disabled veterans.
A gardening program was established, resulting in the certification through the University of Maine of 110 residents as master gardeners. Organics that were once hauled to the transfer station were repurposed as compost for the gardens, saving $100,000 the first year.
He allowed remote work so residents who developed a skill set could be employed by companies on the outside. He had 600 residents with access to the internet, one of whom learned coding and became a senior software engineer for a company in San Francisco, eventually earning $160,000 a year from prison.
“In a lot of cases arrestees are ordered by the court to pay restitution to victims,” Liberty said. “Residents who can earn money while incarcerated can often meet this requirement.”
Many of these programs are still ongoing in Maine’s eight state prisons. Those who graduate from college through the programs have a recidivism rate of .05 percent as opposed to Maine’s rate of 21 percent for men and 9 percent for women. Nationally, the average recidivism rate is as high as 65 percent.
In 2019 Governor Janet Mills appointed Liberty Commissioner of the Maine Department of Corrections. In this role he continues to champion rehabilitation over punishment for the state’s prison population.
“Liberty’s Prison” is scheduled for publication February 4. It will be available on Amazon and hopefully in local bookstores.
In addition to this book Graf has authored numerous articles for the Cobblestone educational magazine group, the PTSD Journal, and the Saratoga and Glens Falls Business Journals.