The night after Labor Day in 1996, David Hobson and two buddies spray-painted graffiti on as many as 10 businesses in downtown Sanford.

Shortly before 2 the next morning, Hobson was arrested in a church parking lot while trying to run away. He was charged with criminal mischief.

He was 18 and starting a long involvement with Maine’s criminal justice system. Hobson, who will turn 34 on Wednesday, has been arrested 10 times since that incident.

While awaiting trial on burglary charges in New Hampshire, he escaped Thursday afternoon from the Carroll County House of Corrections in Ossipee, going over a fence topped with razor wire.

Police still were searching for him Monday.

Jason Johnson, superintendent of the jail, said Hobson is the first inmate to escape since the facility opened in 2003, and only the second in Johnson’s 15 years on the job.

Hobson grew up in Alfred and spent four years at Massabesic High School with the class of 1996. According to school officials, he failed to complete the requirements for his diploma before leaving Massabesic.

For the graffiti incident, he got a 90-day jail sentence with all but 48 hours suspended. He was given a year’s probation and ordered to pay restitution of $1,000.

In 2002, Hobson was arrested for disorderly conduct. He pleaded guilty and paid a $75 fine.

Three years later came the first in a string of felony charges for burglary. Hobson broke into cars and homes and stole cash, electronic equipment and DVDs in Alfred, Acton and Lyman.

He was convicted in May 2006 and sentenced to a year in jail, restitution of $7,114 and three years’ probation. He subsequently violated probation four times — in 2008, 2009 and twice this year.

He spent a second year in jail, including most of 2009, after being found guilty on a drug charge.

In April this year, Hobson was charged with felony theft, and in August he was sentenced to another year in jail. In early October, he was transferred from the Maine Correctional Center in Windham to the jail in Ossipee to face burglary charges in New Hampshire.

In 2004, before any of his felony arrests, Hobson fathered a daughter with a woman from Kennebunk.

Last summer, Hobson fathered a son with Christy Wanager of Biddeford, who is listed as a co-defendant in the New Hampshire burglary case. Court records also give her hometown as Goffstown, N.H.

State police consider Hobson armed and dangerous.

His father, Glenn Hobson, was arrested Friday night by Maine State Police and charged with hindering apprehension and refusing to submit to arrest.

State police spokesman Steve McCausland said troopers found medical supplies, food, water, clothes and blankets that had been left outdoors near the father’s house in Alfred.

The elder Hobson has a criminal record, having pleaded guilty in 2005 to a misdemeanor charge of assault and paying a fine of $200.