“Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.” Zechariah 9:12 As we navigate this season of reflection and renewal, we want to share with everyone an open letter from our associate Gordon, who is currently serving a sentence at the Maine State Prison in Warren. Writing on behalf of his fellow residents, Gordon reaches out directly to the diverse faith communities in and around the Portland, Maine area. His messa

Last month, Maine lost one of its fiercest and most compassionate public servants.

Long before modern conversations about criminal justice reform, the great poet Walt Whitman challenged readers to look at the condemned from a different perspective.

The following is the testimony I gave before the Maine State Legislature's Judiciary Committee in favor of Representative Nina Milliken's L.D. 1941, An Act to Implement Recommendations of the Commission to Examine Reestablishing Parole. Good morning Senator Carney, Representative Kuhn, and respected members of the Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary. My name is Benjamin Miller, and I am an associate of Society Impact of Portland, Maine. We are a statutory public benefit com

I delivered the following testimony before the Judiciary Committee of the Maine Legislature on January 20 in support of L.D. 2059. Access to effective legal representation is a constitutional obligation, one that has been denied Mainers for far too long. Senator Carney, Representative Kuhn, and distinguished members of the Committee, My name is Francis Zarro. I am a resident of Biddeford, Maine and Principal of Society Impact, a public benefit company that works with state an

Richard Stahursky was given a life sentence in Maine and is currently serving time from a New Jersey state prison. The circumstances of Richard’s incarceration and the broader institutional failures that shaped his sentence are documented in two previous pieces written for Society Impact by his loved one: He Was Guilty; So Was the Maine Department of Corrections , and a follow-up piece, Against Everlasting Punishment . A glimmer of hope for prisoners of conscience worldwide (

Colter Cross is currently incarcerated at Maine State Prison and serving a 15-month sentence. Through years of repeated contact with Maine’s criminal courts, he has witnessed the effects of an overburdened and under-resourced public defender system. Writing from inside, he documents how these systemic failures undermine constitutional rights and destabilize families across the state. By Margaret Adams Parker, 1988 I want to start off by introducing myself. My name is Colter C

In our previous coverage of Richard Stahursky’s case, we explored the systemic failures that defined his decades of incarceration. While Richard has accepted responsibility for his actions, his journey highlights a critical question: what is the purpose of our correctional system if not to offer a path toward restoration? In this follow-up piece, his loved one Arimela provides an update on their continued fight for basic human dignities, including Richard’s right to pursue a

The speech below was given by Jonathan Gradess (August 5, 1947 -October 2, 2019) at the Seminar in Criminal Law of the Nassau County Bar Association on October 28, 1978. Gradess, who served as the director of the New York State Defenders Association from 1978 to 2017, was a towering figure in New York’s public defense community, and one of the most principled voices in American criminal justice reform. A lifelong advocate for the poor and marginalized, he devoted his career t

Richard Stahursky is serving a life sentence due to a series of compounding factors, including a severely abusive childhood, untreated mental illness, and repeated failures by the criminal justice system to provide effective legal counsel and necessary mental healthcare. His story is told here by his loved one, Arimela. A man in chains converses with a woman (c. 1775) by William Hamilton. “Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.”  As I read a letter from my bel

Dock workers in Galveston, Texas, 1863. When I was in the 3rd grade, I remember one particular evening my dad asked me what I had learned in school that day. I thought his question was a test of me, not a test of the Philadelphia public school system. I proudly told my father I learned that President Abraham Lincoln was my friend because he freed the slaves with a presidential order called the Emancipation Proclamation. I let my dad know that it was because of this heroic pre

Content warning: mentions of sexual assault Police officers escorting two protesters at a Gay Liberation Front demonstration in New York City (June, 1971) June is pride month, meaning across the country, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans are celebrating their community, history and culture. Recent trends and events, though, have been a sobering reminder that although the LGBT community has made great social and legal progress throughout the years, there is sti

Gov. Kathy Hochul should be commended for bringing the illegal wildcat strike by prison guards to a conclusion within the law while...

There is now a growing movement in New York State and throughout the country for criminal  justice reforms that will reverse a decades...

The following is a testimony given by Frank Zarro before the Maine legislature in April 2025 Dear Senator Beebee-Center, Representative...

The Legislature should take steps to create a new, independent public defense system that's financed by social impact bonds. “Of all the...

Our existing system churns the same people back into its prisons, year after year, costing hundreds of millions of dollars that would be...

The ideal of homeownership is deeply imbedded in American history and culture. In the early Republic, many believed that owning land and...

The following was a virtual talk given by Frank Zarro for the End Mass Incarceration event. The American justice system is an $80 Billion...

As we continue to address the many complex issues involving New York’s badly broken public defense system, we have to start by reducing the problems to their fundamentals. If one looks closely enough at public policy problems, answers and solutions can usually be found by correcting long-held political misperceptions, examining the basic structure of the system in question, and finding the money to get it right. MISPERCEPTIONS The vast majority of public defense clients are n