Lani Graham - Reading your selection on 1/14/26, I came across an article by Alex Duran from the Guardian that caused me to believe, as a Mainer, you need to be updated. There was a paragraph in the Guardian report about Maine prisons that was worrisome. While Maine’s Commissioner, Randall Liberty, has made many improvements, Maine prison’s are far from the paradise implied by Mr. Duran. We may well be the “best in the nation” but that is very, very low bar. And no amount of available technology stops retribution. Our system needs oversight. No system should take care of a totally dependent population without some form of oversight.
Benjamin Miller, Portland Press Herald - 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 records.
By failing to create and fund a formal statewide public defense system, and by repeatedly missing opportunities to pass clean slate, ombudsman and parole legislation, Maine has chosen a cycle of neglect and permanent punishment that costs taxpayers millions while making our communities less safe.
At the core of these failures is Maine’s lack of a formal, statewide public defender system. The U.S. Supreme Court stated in United States v. Cronic, “Of all the rights that an accused person has, the right to be represented by counsel is by far the most pervasive, for it affects his ability to assert any other rights he may have.”
When someone lacks competent legal counsel, they have no meaningful way to secure any other right they are entitled to under the law, which is why middle- and low-income people remain incarcerated while wealthier defendants do not. When defendants wait months in jail without an attorney, every other protection collapses with it.
For nearly 50 years, Maine has operated a one-way justice system. It is the only state in New England to abolish parole. In doing so, Maine traded a proven tool for rehabilitation for a system of permanent, high-cost incarceration that serves neither taxpayers nor public safety. Justice advocates have pushed for parole legislation for years, despite consistent opposition from both political parties, including the current administration in Augusta.
This session, the Maine Legislature has an opportunity to change course by passing LD 1941, a bill to reinstate parole and allow state prisoners who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation to apply for release to community supervision,