A 234-page lawsuit, filed Friday, recounts the experiences of former residents who were held at the youth detention center in the 1990s and allege they were physically and sexually abused by staff.

Telephones inside a Missouri state women’s prison where incarcerated people pay per-minute rates to call loved ones A growing number of incarcerated people across the country now have access to free phone calls and other communication services, a shift some advocates say is strengthening family connections, improving prison conditions and easing reentry after release. Read the full article in the Maine Morning Star.

Saratoga Springs is the wealthiest city in the Capital Region of New York State and, predictably, has a high cost of living. The problem is that the city’s higher-than-average income is not evenly spread across professions and economic classes.

Credit: MDOC Mississippi has repeatedly shown that criminal justice reform can reduce incarceration without undermining public safety — and yet the state keeps reversing course. Read the full article in Mississippi Today.

Pennsylvania requires unanimous approval from a five-member pardon board before people incarcerated on life sentences can ask the governor for clemency. Read the full article in The Appeal.

Maine State Prison, the state’s largest correctional facility, located in Warren. (Photo by Evan Popp/Maine Morning Star) Incarcerated Mainers can get college degrees, earn wages through remote work and vote. There’s universal access to medication for opioid use disorder in the state’s prisons, along with mental health services, collaborations with victim service organizations and reimagined living spaces to support rehabilitation. These opportunities for personal growth help

In this reflection, Father Michael Seavey, a retired Catholic priest from Portland, Maine, considers how faith can help us respond to today’s political and moral divisions. He writes about the danger of “the cruelty of moral indignation” and offers “the blessing of a moral imagination” as a more humane and faithful path forward. The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder Aldous Huxley was an acclaimed British philosopher and writer in the twentieth

By Raven Jiang It is easy to forget that one of the most far-reaching federal criminal justice reform bills in history was signed by Donald Trump. The First Step Act of 2018 reduced mandatory minimum prison sentences, allowed for people to be incarcerated closer to their homes and encouraged compassionate release for elderly or terminally ill prisoners. In 2020, Mr. Trump’s campaign spent millions on a Super Bowl ad that spotlighted the law. Read the full article in The New Y

We wanted to share this episode of the Rundlett & Baldacci Report, where Derry and Rob sit down with trial lawyer John Nale, who is representing Dennis Dechaine. Nale discusses the effort to reopen the case using new DNA technology and lays out the evidence that points to Dechaine’s innocence after more than 30 years in prison. Cases like this are especially difficult to revisit in Maine, where only two felony convictions have been overturned in the state’s 206-year history.

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday celebrated what she said has been the fastest year of residential unit production in her administration, with the state is on pace to complete and exceed a 100,000-unit housing plan ahead of schedule. Read the full article in the Times-Union.

This past weekend, the Inthrive Film Festival came through Maine, and it was an incredibly powerful few days. Society Impact was proud to participate in and support the festival, and to be part of bringing these stories and conversations into the community. We started Friday at Maine State Prison in Warren, where we were able to watch a number of moving films and spend meaningful time with the men inside. Society Impact associate Gordon Perry played a key role in organizing t

This Friday and Saturday, Inthrive Film Festival is coming to Maine! Inthrive is a traveling event that showcases films created by or centered on people who have experienced incarceration, paired with conversations that bring filmmakers, advocates, and community members together. Society Impact is proud to be working alongside the organizers to help bring this powerful festival to the region and support the important stories it elevates. As part of the program, we’ll also be

Former Albany police Detective Kenneth Wilcox is seen in Albany in October 1995. Wilcox has been accused of fabricating confessions from suspects and coercing witnesses to give false statement in numerous homicide cases. He died in 2006 in an on-duty car crash. Five men who were serving potential life sentences have had their convictions overturned in the past decade as department's tactics in the 1990s face scrutiny Read the full article in The Times-Union.

A handful of states from California, Pennsylvania to Maine have tried to adopt a more rehabilitative Scandinavian prison model. But such models have failed to be replicated at large scale. Why?

Pope Leo XIV told inmates at one of Equatorial Guinea’s notorious prisons on Wednesday that they are not alone, as he delivered a message of hope during a visit that drew attention to prison conditions, human rights abuses and injustices that campaigners have denounced for years here.

In Penobscot County, rising jail costs contributed to a roughly $7 million deficit that resulted in a 15% property tax increase for residents last year.

Sherodd Craft, who was released from state prison a year ago after a judge vacated his conviction for a 2001 shooting that killed a teenage girl in Albany, on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Albany and three former city detectives who had integral roles in the investigation.

We originally published the piece below several years ago, at a moment when concern about the Supreme Court’s politicization was becoming harder to ignore. It focused on a part of the Court’s power that receives far less attention than its final rulings: its ability to decide which cases it hears, and when.