Hey Maine, this is Representative Alicia Collins of Sidney with the Weekly Republican Address.
Almost exactly one year ago, during Women’s History Month, Republican lawmakers stood together and spoke about our commitment to protecting girls — ensuring their safety and dignity in locker rooms, bathrooms, and on their sports teams.
We introduced multiple bills to protect girls and women.
Democrats killed every single one of them.
Not one meaningful step forward was taken to protect girls in Maine.
And today, we are seeing the consequences of those policies — not only in our schools, but now inside our prisons.
This week we want Mainers to be aware of a serious safety issue affecting women incarcerated in Maine’s correctional facilities.
These are women in some of the most vulnerable positions imaginable — women who have no control over their environment and no control over their safety.
Yet the state has adopted policies that protect the rights of violent men while ignoring the safety of women.
Who is being protected?
It’s not the women.
Men who have committed horrific crimes — including murder and sexual assault — have declared themselves to be women and are now being housed in women’s prisons, placed in intimate living spaces alongside incarcerated women.
Officials have acknowledged there are currently at least eight biological men housed with women in Maine correctional facilities.
And remember this: 86 percent of women in prison have experienced sexual trauma in their lives.
Imagine surviving abuse — only to be forced to share a living unit, a bathroom, or even a cell with a biological male.
For one woman at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, this nightmare is already a reality.
Inmate Katie Mountain recently wrote in a letter:
“The prison has shattered every part of my soul.”
She says she was verbally threatened and physically assaulted by her cellmate — Andrea Balcer, a 6-foot-1, 310-pound biological male convicted of murdering both parents and the family dog with a hunting knife.
Katie writes she has been living with remarks such as “if you don’t wake up, I smothered you with a pillow.”
And she stated in the letter, she was assaulted by Balcer in the bathroom. Balcer pushed Katie back into a wall and forced kisses on her until she was able to break away.
Despite repeated requests to be moved, she says nothing was done.
Other inmates have reported similar incidents, and reports indicate there may be multiple complaints filed about the same individual.
This is unacceptable.
The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees protection from cruel and unusual punishment — even for those who are incarcerated.
But forcing women to live in fear of assault is exactly that.
Republicans are demanding immediate changes to how biological men are housed in Maine’s prisons.
Women deserve safety — in schools, in sports, and inside correctional facilities.
And yet we continue to hear Democrats claim they stand for women while their policies put women at risk.
We’ve even heard reports that women inside the prison are trading things like pop-tarts or Mountain Dew just to secure protection because they’re afraid to walk to the bathroom alone.
That is a failure of leadership.
Under Maine law — Title 34-A — every person in a correctional facility has the right to protection from abuse.
Women in Maine prisons are asking for help.
And, again and again they have spoken up — and again and again nothing has been done.
Today we want them to hear this.
We want you to hear this:
We are listening.
We care.
And we will fight to protect them.
This has been Representative Alicia Collins with the Weekly Republican Radio Address. Thank you for listening, subscribing, sharing and following us on Facebook, X, TikTok, and Instagram.
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