Prison’s showroom draws fans in-the-know

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THOMASTON – Don’t even mention license plates.

This showroom of prisoner productivity is all about furniture and crafts, nearly $2 million worth made in a year by some 145 inmates at the Maine State Prison, which was just around the corner for 178 years.

But earlier this year the state moved the inmates into new quarters in nearby Warren and tore down the big brick prison along U.S. Route 1.

Since then, Department of Corrections officials say, the seven-day-a-week showroom business has tapered off.

At the popular Fryeburg Fair last week, hundreds of visitors told prison employees that they thought the showroom had closed, prison industries Manager Bob Walden said Thursday. It hasn’t.

Walden estimates sales were off 25 percent to 30 percent during the summer and are down 15 percent this fall. In fiscal year 2001, the industries program had a record year, reporting $1,956,493 in sales, and in fiscal 2002, which ended June 30, sales totaled $1,926,400. Before 2001, annual sales were around $1.5 million, Walden said.

“Now we’re trying to rebuild again,” he said.

Since the showroom opened in the early 1950s, prisoners’ novelties have drawn thousands of visitors to Thomaston. In addition to its wood shop, now at the Warren facility, the industries program has a machine shop and upholstery shop.

Walden said he hopes eventually to have about 300 inmates producing products. The new Maine State Prison in Warren houses roughly 800 inmates.

From small items, such as cutting boards and birdhouses, to big-ticket items like bureaus and chairs, the Thomaston showroom carries some 500 types of merchandise. At the weeklong fair in Fryeburg, the prison industries program sold more than $21,000 worth of cash-and-carry items, Walden said.

All of the novelties are made from wood, many of which are carved from trees harvested by inmates at the Charleston Correctional Facility. The state owns some 6,000 acres in Charleston, according to prison officials. The state also buys some of the estimated 250,000 board feet of wood used annually to create products.

The wood is kiln-dried and run through a sawmill at the Charleston facility, then shipped to the prison in Warren.

Most of the products are made from pine, Walden said, but the state is moving toward using hardwoods for its furniture.

The woodworking shop was buzzing Thursday with the humming sound of machinery and the aroma of cedar. Inmates were sanding wooden toys and carved wildlife figures from chunks of wood.

A finely detailed eagle was being finished by one prisoner. It will perch in a large tree mounting that was also carved by the inmate.

Close by was inmate Richard Maynard, who was sanding a carousel horse. It was the third one he’d made, but he had never done any woodworking before landing in prison, he said.

“The only thing I’d ever carved was a [person] outside a barroom,” Maynard said with a chuckle.

Inmate Charlie Page is the “carving mentor,” Walden said, noting Page has taught many prisoners. Page was working on a whole flock of loons Thursday.

In another corner of the shop was inmate Victor Ehler, who was building vegetable stands for home kitchens. He likes the program because “it keeps you out of trouble.”

Rather than having guards watch prisoners doing nothing, the industries program provides inmates with something productive and the ability to earn money in the process, Warden Jeffrey Merrill said Thursday.

The inmates earn $1 to $2.50 an hour, as well as a monthly bonus that ranges from $15 to $60, Walden said. The maximum income most prisoners can earn is $2,500 yearly. But a few earn up to $4,000 or $5,000 a year, depending on skill levels and work quality. Three inmates who work on special equipment can make up to $6,000 annually. Their income can also be used to pay restitution, Merrill noted.

Inmates must apply to the program and successfully pass a safety training course that involves written and practical exams. They also must pass a review and serve with good behavior.

After inmates’ wages, cost of materials, equipment and some staff salaries, any profit goes back into the program, Merrill said. “It’s not completely funded” by the state, Merrill said.

Usually, money is added to the program or the state breaks even, Walden and Merrill indicated.

In previous years, inmates were paid by the piece for furniture, while they earned 80 percent of the sales price on their novelties. They also could earn up to $10,000 annually.

Industries officials are always looking for new marketing success.

Inmates are hoping to work on a new line of upholstered chairs and have created a line of children’s folding rocking chairs.

Recent hits have been the 70-acorn birdhouses sold at the Fryeburg Fair and plaques with a fish cutout in the middle with “The One That Got Away” engraved on it.

“Up at [the fair] you couldn’t have enough of them,” Walden said.