Every year more than 7,600 women are released from Maine prisons and jails. Having a criminal record can make it more challenging to find a job and stable housing. Some women struggle to regain custody of their children. Others lack emotional support as they confront feelings of inadequacy and isolation.

A seated soldier writing (c. 1914-1918) by Ernest Blaikley Society Impact recently organized a poetry class inside Maine State Prison, giving a small group of residents the chance to spend time writing, reading, and talking about poetry together. The class came together through Society Impact’s ongoing conversations about the importance of education and meaningful programming inside correctional settings. Gordon, our resident colleague at Maine State Prison, helped coordinate

Credit: Pablo Andrés Carvajal / EyeEm / Getty Images Society tends to view incarceration through the lens of punishment and justice. What's less visible, and often much more complex, are the effects that prison has on mental health. Prison can create and worsen mental health problems, and people had pre-existing mental health problems before their incarceration. Read the full article on Verywell Mind.

Yesterday, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders held a rally at the University of Maine's Collins Center for the Arts alongside Troy Jackson, who is running for the Democratic nomination for governor, and Graham Platner, who is running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. The group will hold another rally today in Portland.

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

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

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.

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.

Just after 6 p.m. on a February evening in 2016, the Supreme Court issued a cryptic, one paragraph ruling that sent both climate policy and the court itself spinning in new directions... Read the full article in The New York Times.

The $4 billion would help pay for mixed-income projects, conversions of offices to apartments, renovations to aging buildings and new middle-income apartments built by union workers. A 33-story mixed-income high-rise in Midtown Manhattan, with rents as low as $1,000 for one-bedroom apartments. A 30-unit apartment building in the Bronx for survivors of domestic violence who have struggled with homelessness. A Brooklyn building for formerly incarcerated women and their families