Call to Action: Parole in Maine
This is a Call to Action to bring the option of parole back to Maine!
Our View: Video visits won’t solve major challenges at Maine’s county jails
Increasing treatment funds is key to mitigating drug addiction and smuggling, and allowing contact visits builds the family ties that prevent re-offending.
CHANGE IS POSSIBLE: SOLITARY CONFINEMENT REFORM IN MAINE
Over the past four decades, prisons across the country have increasingly relied on solitary confinement—isolating prisoners in small poorly-lit cells for 23-24 hours per day—as a disciplinary tool for prisoners who are difficult to manage in the general population. But research has shown that these conditions cause serious mental deterioration and illness. When these prisoners are eventually released from solitary confinement, they have difficulties integrating into the general prison population into life on the outside.
Maine Voices: Alternative confinement should be expanded for aging, ailing prisoners
With proper supervision, nursing homes, hospices and assisted living can be humane and cost-effective.
Maine Voices: Criminal justice system needs fix
Sen. Susan Collins should join the bipartisan effort to pass the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act.
Our View: Jail time for unpaid fines unfairly penalizes poverty
A bill now before the Maine Legislature justifiably targets what amount to debtors' prisons.
Our View: The death penalty wrong for Maine
Our state's life without parole is the right punishment for the worst of the worst.
De Blasio Setting Up a Test: Prison Reformer vs. Rikers Island
Joseph Ponte, New York’s newly appointed correction commissioner, has plans for reform. But Rikers will be a far bigger challenge than Maine’s jail system, where he instituted key changes.
‘Frontline’ show puts focus on Maine jail reforms
A PBS documentary on solitary confinement in the U.S. will include Maine’s progression on reducing its use.
Bill Nemitz: Violence in prison a fact of life … but should it be?
It wasn’t quite the response Irv Faunce expected. But when your son is a convicted killer doing time inside the Maine State Prison, your opinion tends to be yours alone.
MAINE COMPASS: Criminal justice system should focus on rehabilitation, not punishment
Last week, legislators considered L.D. 1765, a proposal to create a commission that would examine and revise Maine’s criminal laws. This is an important opportunity for our state to evaluate the effectiveness, objectives and purpose of our criminal justice system.
New state prison mental health center met with optimism
WARREN, Maine — Last spring, Maine Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte said that during a Cabinet meeting, Gov. Paul LePage leaned over and said to him that more beds for the seriously mentally ill were needed.
2nd Knox County jail guard accused of sex assaults against female inmate
ROCKLAND, Maine — A second Knox County Jail guard has been accused of sexually assaulting a female inmate.
Probationers, photos, nature of crimes removed from publicly accessible Maine prisoner database
WARREN, Maine — A recent change that eliminates some information from the Maine Department of Corrections’ online prisoner-probationer databasehas been greeted with relief by the state’s prisoner advocates.
Prison education program offers new beginnings for Maine inmates
WARREN, Maine — Sergio Hairston played varsity football for Lewiston High School, but the running back had spotty attendance and left school in October 2006, his senior year.