A modern prison pod.

More photos.

360° view of Suffolk County Jail pod. 360° view of a jail cell.

Listen to Part 1: "21st Century Prison"
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Listen to a conversation with Arthur Thompson, architect of Maine's new state prison, and Chase Riveland, former prison director.
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In the 1980s, the nation began a dramatic shift in attitude toward crime and punishment. Lawmakers dismantled programs designed to help rehabilitate criminals, like prisoner furloughs in Massachusetts or the parole system in Maine. Instead, they passed tough new sentencing laws that put more people in prison for longer.

The result: crime's gone down, but inmate numbers have exploded. And so has the prison construction industry, as states push to build bigger, better, more efficient prisons.

In Part 1 of our series, "The Price of Punishment", producer Jennifer Schmidt travels to Maine to look at two prisons, a very old one and the new one that will replace it.

Lawmakers Investigating Alleged Prisoner Mistreatment - a WBUR report WBUR Investigates Allegations of Abuse of Prisoners US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics Ohio State Department of Correction and Rehabilitation provides an overview of new prison construction. Maine Department of Corrections