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

A glimmer of hope for prisoners of conscience worldwide (1959) by Pablo Picasso My name is Richard Stahursky, and I am 47 years old. I am serving a natural life sentence in Maine. This is my story. I grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where only the strongest survived. I had to do things at an early age that I am not proud of, but it was all about survival. Back then, you were either a wolf or a sheep. This mentality has stayed with me throughout my life, and although it h

By Margaret Adams Parker, 1988 I want to start off by introducing myself. My name is Colter Cross. I am currently an inmate at the Maine State Prison. I have been in and out of jail my whole life for one thing or another. I am currently in college, which is amazing considering the fact that I’m in prison. I am currently serving a 15-month sentence for driving after revocation. As you can imagine, I have a lot of firsthand experience with the public defender system here in Mai

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