Randall Liberty is Maine Commissioner of Corrections. He is responsible for the direction and general administrative supervision, guidance, and planning of both adult and juvenile correctional facilities and programs throughout the state. He has more than forty-three years of leadership experience in the fields of corrections and law enforcement. He previously served as Warden of the Maine State Prison and for more than twenty-six years in the Kennebec County Sheriff's Office, nine of which were as the elected Sheriff. Liberty is a retired U.S. Army Command Sergeant Major and Bronze Star recipient for his service in Fallujah, Iraq.
Christine Graf is a freelance writer with more than twenty years of experience. Her work has appeared in magazines, newspapers, and textbooks. She is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University, USA.

Randy Liberty is one of America's most compelling voices in prison reform-and his unflinching memoir reveals how he got there. From the chaos of a violent childhood to becoming a national leader transforming our correctional system-one man's extraordinary journey proves that change is possible.
Liberty's story traces a path that defies every expectation. Raised in poverty with a father behind bars, he could have become another casualty of the system. Instead, he forged himself into a leader-first as a decorated Command Sergeant Major in Iraq, where he carried the weight of life-and-death decisions in combat, then as an elected county sheriff, rescue diver, prison warden, and eventually Commissioner of Corrections, in each role confronting human crisis daily.
His personal battle with PTSD gave him rare insight into the mental health struggles plaguing America's prisons. Now, as a national voice in correctional reform, Liberty brings both moral authority and hard data to the fight for systemic change, delivering measurable results in cost savings and human dignity.
At a time when America grapples with the failures of "tough-on-crime" policies and the dangerous allure of political retribution, Liberty offers something more powerful than rhetoric: proof that decency can triumph over despair, that forgiveness can heal what punishment cannot. True justice requires the courage to see our shared humanity-even in the darkest places. This book is a testament to resilience, transformation, the healing power of forgiveness, and the urgent need to reimagine justice in America.
Peter Maramaldi, Endowed Professor, Simmons University School of Social Work, Adjunct Professor, Harvard School of Public Health

Liberty's Prison is a must-read for correctional leaders throughout the United States. Randy Liberty is one of the most forward-thinking leaders in the field, and through his work with the Maine Department of Corrections, he has proven that when you provide incarcerated individuals with opportunities for change, in most cases, they will take advantage of those opportunities.

Because his father served time in prison, Liberty thinks differently than most leaders, viewing the correctional system through a different lens, one that began to take shape during his childhood. He recognizes the incarcerated as human beings-seeing them as someone's father or mother, someone's son or daughter, someone's brother or sister.

Liberty has dedicated his career to providing the incarcerated with opportunities for change, and any time we have ideas for innovations in the field of corrections, he is the first person we go to. As correctional leaders, there is much we can learn by reading Liberty's story.

Part memoir, part recipe for change, this book compellingly makes the case for the human ability to change, and the need to make sure our structures change along with them.

Liberty's Prison has many lessons we need to learn. First, incarceration is most frequently the result of structural rather than individual failings-patriarchy, masculinity, poverty, racism, lack of social safety nets-and therefore structural solutions are needed to change it. Second, leadership matters. When leaders' personal identities give them access to perspectives that facilitate unconventional decisions, many benefits can follow. Third, incarcerated people are capable of living meaningful lives that can both contribute to society while also addressing their own personal growth, if only given the chance. The political will of leaders is the missing ingredient, but Randy Liberty adds it in and has made real change in Maine's Department of Correction.

Randy Liberty's personal insight into how incarceration harms families and society, and his commitment to reinventing what the system does for people in confinement, is both a revolutionary and pragmatic approach to the field. His bold choices upend conventional practices of incarceration, reminding readers of the true meaning of correction-to offer means for self-betterment that can also heal patterns of structural and individual harm. Through economic opportunities for incarcerated people to earn real income via remote work and college degrees, to therapeutic meaning-making through gardening, bee-keeping, and yoga, the story of Liberty's tenure as Commissioner of the Maine Department of Correction holds lessons for decision-makers in every state. This book gave me hope that real change in the carceral system is possible.

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Pub date: 2026-02-05

Length: 248 pages