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

On Monday, New York lawmakers satisfied the demands of CARE for Immigrant Families , a coalition of justice reform, civil rights, and labor rights organizations, in their bid to secure more $175 million in funding for immigrant legal defense services. You can read the organization's statement here . The right to due process belongs to all people within the jurisdiction of the United States, regardless of immigrant status, documented or not. As the unconstitutional arrests an

BANGOR, Maine — Penobscot County officials are sharing the first glimpse of what a proposed new jail in Hampden could look like. The project has been in discussion for several years. While it is still in the early stages, Penobscot County Sheriff Troy Morton said updates to the current facility are long overdue. The Penobscot County Jail has been located on Hammond Street in Bangor for more than 150 years. Read the full article on New Center Maine .

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

A federal judge’s decision paints a picture of a state corrections commissioner unable or unwilling to address brutality and corruption. Commissioner Daniel Martuscello III of the state Department of Correction and Community Supervision at a legislative panel in May 2025. In the preceding six months, two men had been beaten to death by correction officers in New York's prisons If she hasn’t already, Gov. Kathy Hochul should read a federal judge’s decision to reject state corr

Peter, Paul and Mary perform at the Cumberland County Civic Center in 1985 to mark 25 years since the trio formed. Noel Paul Stookey was still a long way from Maine when he and his Peter, Paul and Mary bandmates heard one of their songs, “Lemon Tree,” on the radio for the first time. It was 1962, and the trio were riding across San Francisco Bay, heading to their first on-air appearance with the DJ who helped the track take off. They asked the record company representative dr

The Maine State Prison in Warren The likelihood of a veto by Gov. Janet Mills, who opposes the effort to reestablish a parole system, hung over debate at the Capitol. Read the full article in the Portland Press Herald .

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

The integrity of a legal system is a single, interconnected web. When one strand breaks, the entire structure of justice collapses. Maine’s system is failing because we lack four essential pillars of a fair and just criminal justice system: constitutionally effective legal representation for all criminal defendants, a meaningful path to earned release through parole, formal prison oversight with real accountability and the ability for rehabilitated individuals to clear their

Resident Darren McKenzie (right) and Jesse Mackin water tomato plants on the grounds of the Mountain View Correctional Facility’s garden in Charleston in June 2021 Maine is one of 16 states that has abolished or severely limited parole. It's the only state in the Northeast to do so. Different from probation, which is part of someone's sentence, parole is the conditional, supervised release of a prisoner into the community before a sentence is completed. Four years ago, a stat

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

Recently, an organization we are working with, No Penobscot County Jail Expansion , held a press conference making their case for the establishment of diversion programs as an alternative to the construction of a new county jail. BANGOR, Maine (WABI) - While Penobscot County works on plans to relocate the jail from Bangor to Hampden, a local group has formed to offer an alternative. Hoping to keep folks out of jail rather than expand the number of beds, local activists have c

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

The referendum question would require voters to show IDs that prisoners currently can’t have. Photo by Gabe Souza. MAINE, USA — Some civil rights advocates are worried that Question 1 on next month’s referendum ballot could block incarcerated people’s right to vote. The coalition Voter ID for ME successfully petitioned through a citizen initiative to put the proposed legislation on the November 4 ballot. Question 1 asks voters to consider requiring photo identification to vot