HELP!!!!!!!!!!! Hancock County Genealogical Society: State Prison at Thomaston going to DESTROY Records

PLEASE EMAIL BELOW AND SAVE THE RECORDS!!!!!!!!!!!!! TAKE 5 MINUTES AND SAVE THE RECORDS EMAIL ADDRESS BELOW !!!!! FUTURE GENERATIONS WILL THANK YOU ALONG WITH ME AND OTHER RESEARCHERS

Currently the State Archives holds the records for inmates at the State Prison at Thomaston. These records are confidential, but a family member could get access to the family member's records. Many people, including myself did not realize that the early records are currently at the State Archives. Records management is scanning the inmate records, but only the records of the dates of incarceration, times spent at the prison and if they died there, date of date. These files currently include correspondence written by inmates to lawyers or attorneys, ministers, etc about their case or situation and letters written by a Warden in regards to the behavior or misbehavior of the inmate. These records will be lost as they are on tract to be destroyed as the Dept. of Corrections sees no value in keeping these records. Keep in mind the records they are looking at destroying are from the time of about 1900- 1940. the later dates beyond 1940 still legally have be to kept.

Also these are records about inmates who committed crimes from armed robbery to murder. So these records could hold very graphic or sensitive information. I was asked do we think that it would be worth it for a family member to have access to these letters, or other material besides the dates and times of the inmate at Thomaston? Would a researcher want to know these details about their relative or ancestor especially if they had committed the crime of murder?

If any of you think there could be value, then the Archives is asking we as individuals or even MGS please write asking that these records not be destroyed.

I do not have this personal situation to deal with. However I have a friend who learned that her grandfather had committed the crime of armed robbery in the 1930s when a young man. He was married with a daughter at the time. He was sentenced to 10-15 years in prison. His wife divorced and remarried and their daughter to avoid the shame was adopted by her step-father and never knew her own father. My friend was able to obtain his records by a lawyer that included letters he had written while in prison to his lawyer. He was a model prisoner and was released early. But he also wrote letters to his probation officer about his life after prison what work he found and his struggles and even a letter written by a priest who had befriended him and wrote on behalf of his behavior after prison. I remember my friend telling me how she and her mother cried reading these letters from their father and grandfather they never knew. Now his crime was not murder, but armed robbery was a serious crime. Still they felt that just reading about his life even in prison and his struggles afterwards told them so much about him and it was the only documentation they had about his life.

If any of you think that any this should be saved and let a researcher decide for themselves to get this information and not just have these records lost forever, then MGS or anyone of us can write to make a case for these records to be saved. But this needs to be done quickly as the decision will be made in the next 2 weeks or so.

email from VP of MGS

Emails need to be sent to:

Tammy Marks, Director of Records Management

Tammy.marks@maine.gov

please CC

Dave Cheever, Maine State Archivist

David.Cheever@maine.gov

As no one is really coming forward about this issue as many people may not care or even be aware that this will occur, the archives is hoping we can sway the opinion to save these early records as I said the Dept of Corrections is not thinking of terms of anyone in the future or currently even having knowledge or concerns about these records and files being saved or think that any family member would be interested.

Help save these records!!!!!!



I received an email response from Maine Archives:
Cheever, David <David.Cheever@maine.gov>
3:40 PM (4 hours ago)
to me
Dear Gwen,
Thank you for your recent e-mail expressing concerns about the fate of records generated by Maine’s Department of Corrections.
Archival holdings are subject to review from time to time, as are retention schedules for documents having non-permanent status.
In the instance about which you wrote to us, the holdings in question have a variety of elements that make their reviews here worthy. First among them is our aim to bring to those holdings a consistency with which institutions performing the same services can regard the records about those services as holding the same value.
Within the Department of Corrections, for example, several State-run institutions held differing disposition schedules for the same actions.
In our view, and with the Department’s concurrence, it made little sense that the documents of one facility held a different value over another. In achieving agreement with the Department to make their schedules more uniform, records that had been held long past the exhaustion of their retention schedules thus became eligible for destruction.
Additionally, we determined that some records that previously had been accorded archival status no longer fit that designation because they had been categorized inappropriately when they first arrived.
We also elected to address the Department generated records that contained Confidential information regarding people entrusted to State supervision. In particular, we have records relating to juvenile offenders. Those are records that by Maine law cannot be shared. They also carry an agreed-upon schedule for disposition. Yet, we are, possessing many boxes of documents that shall forever be outside the reach of the public. And, further, since their retention schedules have been more than reached, they are more than eligible for destruction.
Please know that we are not destroying truly archival records. Like you, we take our preservation and public access responsibilities very seriously. At the same time we also hold to the idea that retention schedules likewise have utility and value. We assure you that we are honoring our commitment to the documents in our care.
Again, thank you for your interest in this matter. We apologize for any confusion that might have arisen in any earlier description of the records in question.
Dave Cheever
Maine State Archivist
207-287-5793
State Archives
84 State House Station
Augusta ME 04333-0084


Comments

  1. I am writing my post to them today!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Awesome, thank you so very much. Criminal records are so hard to find and get. To destroy them is a shame, most have tons of genealogy treasures in them. God Bless

      Gwen

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