A 14-year-old escaped Maine’s Long Creek Youth Development Center last Friday.
The teenager, who is not being identified because they are a minor, escaped the state’s only youth detention center at around 9:32 p.m., according to Maine Department of Corrections officials. The South Portland Police Department located the teenager and took the youth into custody at around 11:53 p.m.
The teenager was returned to Long Creek.
Officials were able to determine how the youth escaped the center and are working to prevent future escapes. How the teenager was able to escape Long Creek was not disclosed.
Last July, two teenagers were able to escape the youth detention center by jumping off the roof. Davyn Flynn, 18, and a 16-year-old boy, whom authorities did not identify because he is a minor, were arrested in Massachusetts and Maine nearly four days after the youths escaped on July 27, 2024.
After escaping, the two teens allegedly went on to carjack a woman leaving her nearby apartment building and disappeared for nearly four days until authorities captured them in separate locations on July 30, according to police.
Officers in Georgetown, Massachusetts, arrested the 16-year-old early in the morning on July 30 after he allegedly crashed a stolen vehicle there. It is unclear whether he faces charges related to the escape because juvenile court records are confidential under state law.
Maine police captured Flynn a few hours later in Biddeford after local police spotted him fleeing the scene of a hit and run that involved a stolen vehicle, state corrections officials said. He has been charged with escaping a correctional facility, as well as robbery, criminal threatening, assault, theft and terrorizing related to the carjacking.
And on Jan. 28, 2025, a group of boys broke out of Maine’s youth prison and were corralled within the fenced-in section of the facility’s campus.
The nine boys attempted to break out of an office, entering the prison’s fenced yard with a broken guitar, a table-top vice and a fire extinguisher, according to dispatch records obtained by the Bangor Daily News under a public records request.
Police waited outside in case any boys escaped Long Creek’s fenced-in grounds, which they didn’t, said Chief Daniel Ahern. He confirmed that officers witnessed boys outside of the building within its secure perimeter. Officers left around 1:30 a.m.
It was just one of multiple incidents that occurred at the youth detention center since November 2024.
BDN reporter Callie Ferguson contributed to this story.
