About Us
MPAC is a statewide group formed in 2007 to improve conditions for inmates, former inmates, their families, victims of crime and others.
Our coalition members include, most importantly, offenders and their families and friends. Our organizational colleagues include groups well known for their powerful commitment and continued struggle for human rights: NAACP, ACLU, NAMI, Maine Council of Churches, MERN; and individuals dedicated to social justice and humane treatment of all people
Our Work
Director’s Monthly Updates
Read monthly updates from our Executive Director, Joseph Jackson.
Direct Advocacy
Direct Advocacy is a program designed to identify policies and practices that adversely impact confined citizens and their families. Our response team, that includes system impacted citizens, receives and responds to complaints from confined citizens and their families through the mail or other types of communication platforms. The response team meets with executive leadership to report whether a complaint meets the criteria for group intervention. When a complaint meets eligibility requirements, the Response Team and Directors establish dialogue with prison officials to reform or rescind a policy or practice.
Public Education
MPAC has a Speakers Bureau comprised of staff, members, and volunteers dedicated to public education, i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Interviews, Opeds, LTE, Panels, Conferences, Colleges, and Churches.
Organized Policy Actions
MPAC has a dedicated team of staff, members, and volunteers monitoring, proposing, and organizing constituents around Administrative Rule Making.
Support
MPAC connects returning citizens and family to recovery, employment, housing, peer support resources throughout Maine
Organized Legislative Actions
MPAC has a dedicated team of staff, members, and volunteers monitoring, tracking and organizing constituents around criminal justice legislation.
Who We Are
MPAC Staff
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Mr. Joseph Jackson was convicted in 1995 of manslaughter and sentenced to Maine Department of Corrections (MDOC) where he served nineteen years. As a prisoner, Mr. Jackson completed Literacy Volunteer Training; PEER Education; and Work Ready Alternatives to Violence, One, Two, and Three. He is a founder of the Maine State Prison chapter of the NAACP and served on its Executive Committee in several capacities from 2003-2012.
While incarcerated, Joseph earned his Associate’s and Bachelor’s degrees with summa cum laude honors from the University of Southern Maine in Augusta. Later that year, he was selected as a member of Who's Who among students in colleges and universities in 2012. He became the first prisoner in Maine to be selected to the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA in the Creative Writing graduate program while still a prisoner, and represented alums of the University of Southern Maine in Augusta’s 50 Years 50 Portraits for their 50th anniversary in 2015. In addition, he earned his Master’s Degree from the University of Southern Maine in 2015, and was one of four commencement speakers for his class.
Joseph has published poetry in the online news journal Village Soup, and his poetry is featured in Portland’s and Bangor’s NAACP Martin Luther King breakfast catalogs from 2005-2012. His poem “Brighter Days” was published in the UMA Scholar in 2012, and his poetry was featured in the Bangor Daily News in 2014. In January of 2016, he released his master’s thesis Black In Maine to the world. A digital copy can be found at https://usm.maine.edu/library.
In addition to his role with MPAC, Joseph is the Advocacy Director with Maine Inside Out (MIO). MIO builds community, develops youth leadership, and initiates dialogue through the use of collaborative original theater, working across boundaries, both inside and outside of Long Creek Youth Development Center. Simultaneously, his work with the Reentry Center in Belfast with incarcerated citizens, led to the co-founding of Restorative Art Works (RAW) in Belfast. RAW creates original theater as therapy to address the post traumatic stress of incarceration.
Joseph has experienced many successes during his decade plus work as a prison advocate: revoking, revising, or defeating proposed MDOC policies and practices. He has established a good working relationship with MDOC and can enter any facility to meet with a prisoner or department head. Joseph has established relationships in Augusta with members of both parties, and is now a member of Maine’s Juvenile Justice assessment Task Force. He has coordinated the planning and implementation of several campaigns: Notably on phone rates, pen pals, solitary confinement, monetary sanctions, and prison health care. He has overseen the proposing, pushing and enacting of many pieces of legislation.
Joseph has organized and mobilized MPAC's base by establishing bimonthly community meetings in various locations throughout the state: These meetings are used to strategically plan, implement, and reflect upon our advocacy efforts. As Director, he coordinates the management of media platforms to further engage the public, and his efforts have raised MPAC's visibility beyond the borders of Maine, both nationally and internationally, with his appearance in December 2018, in the British publication, The Guardian.
Under Joseph’s leadership, MPAC has grown in capacity from a fledgling organization constantly flirting in the red, to solidly in the black for six consecutive years. He has established relationships with donors throughout Maine, and by working closely with our finance committee on grants, and other fundraising efforts, MPAC is in the midst of experiencing fiscal growth.
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Joelle (she/her) began volunteering with MPAC seven years ago as Assistant Grant Writer, and is now the Administrative Assistant and lead Grant Writer: she takes care of those behind-the-scenes office tasks, engages in written correspondence with community members on the inside, and helps raise the money that supports MPAC’s work. Joelle is also a Multi Language Learner Teacher in Lewiston, with a goal of quashing the school-to-prison pipeline.
Joelle earned an MS from the University of San Francisco, and an MA from the University of Maine. Along her journey, she taught in Mexico and Texas, and picked up Spanish along the way. She loves to dance to old-school Salsa, especially Colombian, read a good mystery, and tend to her flower garden.
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Retired HS Science teacher and blueberry farmer, Jan became involved with criminal justice reform when her son was incarcerated in 2012. Since then she has served on the Board of Visitors for Franklin County Jail, acts as MPACs liaison with the prison branch of the NAACP, and regularly testifies before the legislature on issues related to criminal justice reform.
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Peter Lehman, PhD, is MPAC’s Legislative Coordinator. He is a person in long-term recovery who taught sociology and criminology at USM until being incarcerated for a six-year sentence at the old prison in Thomaston and at Bolduc. He was released in 2003.
While at Bolduc Correctional Facility he was active tutoring students, acting as inmate advocate, doing the flower gardening, pursuing his own education and recovery, and working for the substance abuse department. He completed seven University courses on addiction and counseling. He also developed and taught an intensive six-week course for residents dealing with addiction, recovery, and relapse.
Since then, Dr. Lehman has been active in the recovery community, has helped develop reentry support programs and initiatives, and is a founding member of MPAC. He has been a presence on corrections and other criminal justice issues in the legislature since 2005 as well as providing input and critiques of Department of Corrections policies. Currently, he is also active with the Maine Prisoner Re-Entry Network and serves on its Board.
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Brandon Brown is a second year PhD student at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution; both his research and his studies focus on the ways that narratives shape the experience of conflict, and how systems and structures shape narratives.
Brandon’s journey into advocacy, activism, and academia all started in the same place--as a young man sentenced to 17 years in prison, he discovered the gift of education thanks to Doris Buffett and her Sunshine Lady Foundation. Immersing himself in education as a young, incarcerated man, he began to see the world in a different way—a newfound understanding of the injustice of American history helped shape his desire to be in the fight for more just, more equitable, and more peaceful systems in this country. The first step in this work was finding positive ways to contribute to his community: among other roles, Brandon served his incarcerated peers as a hospice volunteer, yoga teacher, mentor, tutor, peer facilitator, a board member and the president of the MSP chapter of the NAACP. Brandon sought out every possible opportunity to make his environment better than how he found it, and transitioning back into the community, he remains dedicated to continuing that work on both sides of the walls.
Education has become a passion for Brandon. The liberating quality of learning was a profound thing that he discovered while incarcerated; Brandon was able to earn both his AA and BA while in prison, and even became the first incarcerated person in Maine to earn a graduate degree while in custody. Going on to enroll in his doctoral program while at the Bolduc Correctional Facility, Brandon has remained dedicated to blazing a trail for other hungry learners to follow. His experience with the criminal justice system serves as the continuing fuel for his advocacy and activism, whether it be in policy and legislative reform efforts, advocating for improved systems and networks for recovery and reentry, or working for Maine’s system impacted youth, Brandon continues to push forward to create a more just and healing-centered system for addressing crime and harm.
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With 30+ years of incarceration at the Maine State Prison, Robert (known to many as Paco), has been impacted by many traumatic experiences from his history behind bars.
Yet while locked up Paco was given the opportunity to learn about his own talents and used them to not only provide hospice care to his dying peers, but also to help create a music cd and to acquire both his associate's and bachelor's degrees from the University of Maine @ Augusta.
Upon his release from incarceration in 2020, Paco reconnected with Joseph Jackson (Executive Director of MPAC), and has since become a project coordinator within the organization.
Paco has been a part of multiple films focused on the plight of those who are serving time in Maine's prison system, and is a passionate speaker on their behalf, as well as an authentic voice about the challenges of reintegration into society as it exists now.
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My name is Wendy Smith. I am a formerly incarcerated woman in recovery from substance use disorder. While inside I worked as a counsel substitute to make sure women’s rights were upheld during the disciplinary process. I worked with the NAACP writing bills for legislature, attended college, recovery coached, organized for Maine Recovery Advocacy Project and established a resource that assists woman with financial barriers around higher education in prison. All of which I continue to do today. I also am a facilitator and public speaker for the Maine Humanities Council and am employed by MPAC and Restorative Justice Institute of Maine as the Young Adult Diversion Program & Policy Lead.
“Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed; it means the damage no longer controls our lives”
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Andre “Dray” Hicks is a social entrepreneur, mentor and national performance artist who has recorded with Kool G. Rap and toured with Yeti. Andre is a Deering High School alumni student athlete, lives in Portland with his family and is the longstanding manager of Toni’s Touch, the cornerstone barbershop and salon in the Portland community. Andre is a 2022 American Council of Learned Societies Fellow, co-designing curriculum on the themes of accountability, forgiveness, liberation and healing. Building upon his lived experience in the justice system as a youth and adult, he works as a mentor to young people and adults with the Opportunity Scholars Initiative at the University of Southern Maine. Andre facilitates weekly groups of currently and formerly incarcerated people to build positive reentry support and works to create opportunities for people to aspire to greatness and thrive. He uses the tools of writing, conversation, and performance art to facilitate justice as healing and liberation and mentors’ youth in financial literacy and wellbeing.
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Ms. George is a skillful, innovative, dedicated scholar and thought partner from Brooklyn, NY. She resides in Maine, where she is incarcerated. Darlene George Holds her BA in Psychology and Forensic Psychology, Darlene is an Grants Manager for a Health Facility in Maine, a Recovery Coach for over a Decade, Ms. George facilitates humanities courses with other incarcerated women and the public, titled Finding and Connecting Your Roots and Floetry. Darlene is a Board Member of the College Guild that serves the population of individuals that does not have access to College. Darlene is also an active member of Maine Prisoners Advocacy Coalition. Darlene is an Opportunity Scholar and a Facilitator for the Right/Write to heal Creative Writing group. Darlene Facilitates classes for Colby College (Freedom and Captivity) for outside organizations, Journeys of trauma healing and forgiveness, Loss, Repair, and Transformation, and What is liberation.
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MPAC Coordinator Antonio Cuba Jackson is an abolitionist, civic leader, and
Entrepreneur. After spending nearly a decade in Maine’s prison system, Antonio joined MPAC and committed himself to the work of ensuring the ethical treatment of incarcerated individuals in our state.
While incarcerated Antonio served on the Executive Committee of the Maine State Prison branch of the NAACP as Vice president from 2013 - 2016.
Antonio earned an associates degree (magna cum laude) in Liberal Studies from the University of Maine at Augusta. A Bachelors of Arts from the Louisiana Baptist University.
Antonio is the owner and founder of 3T Builders and Renovators. His company is a full-scale general contractor. They offer new construction and renovations for customers throughout Maine. The company's goal is to ensure system-impacted individuals have access to work, and training in a skilled trade. They offer employment and competitive wages without regard to criminal history.
As MPAC Coordinator Antonio has dived into the supporting reentry transition for system impacted individuals. He is a spokesperson for MPAC and engages in strategic partnerships with the Maine Humanities Council and the Freedom and Captivity Project.
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Linda Small is a Project Coordinator for Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition. She is the founder and executive director of Reentry Sisters, a reentry support organization specializing in a gender-responsive and trauma-informed approach for women, serving Maine and beyond. She began her college journey while incarcerated. Now living a successful reentry life, she is proof of the power of education to transform.
She is the first woman in Maine, under the Second Chance Pell program, to apply to graduate school and is in a Master of Science Adult and Higher Education program and a Social Justice Fellow at USM. Linda is passionate about advocating for equitable access to higher education, jobs, and housing for system-impacted people and serves on the New England Commission for the Future of Higher Education in Prison through The Educational Justice Institute (TEJI) at MIT. She is a member of the Opportunity Scholars Network, which helps formerly and currently incarcerated students achieve their educational goals. She is a program facilitator for book and film groups for the Maine Humanities Council and a DJ for Justice Radio, a talk show on WMPG and WERU about the carceral state.
MPAC Board
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Rosalani Moore is the Assistant Director of HOME, Inc. where she works closely with disadvantaged families developing pathways out of poverty. Rosa has a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and certification as a Behavioral Health Professional as well as a Human Resources Certification from UMA. Rosa volunteers on a number of nonprofit boards and brings a mixture of nonprofit experience and lived experience to the MPAC board. Lived experience includes growing up in poverty, family members experiencing incarceration, foster parenting of siblings, and supporting family members experiencing mental health and substance use challenges. Rosa resides in Verona Island where she spends her free time dabbling in the arts such as pottery and painting as well as playing with her two labs.
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Experienced entrepreneur and community leader with a proven track record in project success, budget management, and productivity improvement. Skilled in interoffice coordination and communication. Committed to personal development and transforming challenges into opportunities. Currently advancing education to enhance project management and organizational skills. Aspiring to establish a nonprofit focused on personal development for youth and young adults.
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Craig Williams of Sanford, Maine; Board member; Bronx, NY Native; Co-Founder of Photo Patch Foundation, UnlockAcademy & Field Organizer for the National Council.
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Julian Rowand (he/him) inhabits a body of color (Black, mixed-raced, abled-bodied) and resides on unceded land of the Wabanaki Confederacy in a town now called Freedom with his sweetheart, Erika. Julian brings a life-long commitment to collaboration, a passion for creative and embodied practice, and a resolute belief in the need for deep solidarity with those most targeted by institutional and structural oppression.
Julian is currently a Director of the Grants for Change Program with Maine Initiatives, a participatory grantmaking program that strengthens Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) community-based, nonprofit organizations working toward racial justice in Wabanaki Territory (Maine). Before joining Maine Initiatives, Julian’s organizing focused on affordable, cooperative, housing in Maine and in Washington, D.C., and before that, Julian was an artist/organizer in the Bay Area for many years. Most prominently, Julian was Co-Director for ‘These Walls Speak’, a multi-year, participatory research, documentary project that examines the politics of place, community resistance, and the power of artist expression in the Mission District of San Francisco.
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Ryun Anderson (she/her) lives in Southern Maine on Wabanaki land. She currently practices as a trauma therapist and community facilitator. She became part of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition while collaborating with people incarcerated at the Maine State Prison who are leaders in transformative justice practice and advocacy. She has served as a trainer, advocate, outdoor educator and collaborative change maker. Ryun holds an MSW from the University of Southern Maine and she is a PhD student in Leadership, Creativity and Sustainability with the University of Vermont, and is studying to become an interfaith chaplain with the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine. In her current community work, she serves as the Co-Chair for the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition Board of Directors, a leadership circle member with the Tri-Town Equity and Inclusion Coalition, and a member of the Ecotherapy Collaborative of Maine. She is forever committed to the beautiful, messy, curious, compassionate practice of finding our way to working together well, and she believes in an ever unfolding capacity for change in people, communities and organizations. She cherishes deep connections with beloveds in her life, music, reading, cooking shows, and time outdoors.
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Carla Hunt, (she/her) lives on unceded Wabanaki land, currently known as Yarmouth, Maine. She is recently retired and actively involved in racial justice work in her community and across the state. As a Black mother of a young adult living in the US and a family member of a system impacted individual, she is acutely aware of the injustices of our criminal system and the ways in which it impacts her people. She believes that restorative justice is one of many ways forward in deconstructing broken, oppressive systems.
She coordinates housing efforts through Yarmouth Compassionate Housing Initiative, YCHI (now under the umbrella of the New Mainers Assistance Program – NMAP), serves on the board of Maine Initiatives, currently as Board President and is an educational facilitator for Wabanaki REACH. She recently worked for the Commissioner's Office with Maine DHHS in health equity programs coordinating social service support for those impacted by COVID across the state including those incarcerated.
While the US is home, Carla has spent over 18 years living abroad in Liberia, Laos and Mauritania. More recently, she has divided her time between Maine and Morocco.