The Maine Model: A Portrait of Corrections presents photographs taken by Hedva Rokach inside four correctional facilities in Maine in the summer of 2026. Rokach photographed residents and staff in the places where they live and work: cells, housing units, a library, prayer rooms, gardens, and other spaces. Made without staging and using the light already present in these environments, the photographs show people and their surroundings as part of everyday life inside the facilities.

The photographs reflect Rokach’s encounter with Maine’s correctional system, which follows a model combining principles of punishment and rehabilitation, influenced in part by correctional practices in Norway. They portray residents as complex human beings without obscuring their responsibility for the acts that led to their incarceration. Light, space, and the distances between people become part of the encounter with the reality being photographed. Light shapes the atmosphere of daily life in these facilities and influences how viewers encounter the people and places in the photographs.

In some photographs, figures have been erased, leaving white spaces or white silhouettes in their place, in response to restrictions on publishing photographs showing the faces of certain individuals. The erasure is neither concealed nor softened, and the white spaces stand out within the image. This intervention makes absence part of the image, inviting reflection on the people erased from the photographs, the acts that led to their incarceration, and the victims whose lives were damaged or cut short.

The book does not seek to evaluate Maine’s model of corrections and rehabilitation. Instead, it invites viewers to observe the people and places Rokach encountered and to consider questions of confinement and freedom, punishment and rehabilitation, responsibility, and the possibility of reentering society.

The project is an independent artistic work. The Maine Department of Corrections provided access to the facilities and logistical assistance without intervening in the artistic process. The U.S. edition is printed at Maine Correctional Center, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Resident Benefit Fund.