Director’s Update: February 2026
Operations:
January 2026
MPAC: Board consists of 6 members, Co-Chair Julian Rowand, Co-Chair Carla Hunt, Secretary Thazra Hylton,board members Craig Williams, Rosalani Moore and Thraza Rosie Hylton.
MPAC currently has a staff size of 11 individuals. Joseph Jackson, Jan Collins, Peter Lehman, Joelle Jackson, Darlene George, Brandon Brown, Andre Hicks, Antonio Jackson, Linda Small, Sammy Basu, and Kathy Elliot
MPAC has 12 volunteers. Lee Urban, Doug Dunbar, Jon Courtney, Jamie Peloquin, Leslie Manning, Olivia Hochstadt, Lani Graham, Adriane Herman, Nicole Lund, Sarah Johnson, Craig McEwen, Al Cleveland, Cindy and Isabelle H. Special thanks for their work and dedication.
MPAC Mission. Value, and Purpose statements
Our Mission is to support and advocate for Maine’s incarcerated citizens, their families and friends.
Our Purpose is to reduce Maine’s use of incarceration by advocating for a criminal legal system that is ethical, humane and restorative.
Our Vision is of a justice system that is restorative. It supports humanity in every person, and reflects and creates transformation and accountability.
MPAC Staff meet weekly to ensure we are in alignment.
MPAC- Community facilitators will support community volunteers.
MPAC staff members regularly communicate with incarcerated residents and formerly incarcerated individuals.
MPAC staff meeting in-person with incarcerated residents at MSP, Bolduc, MCC, SMWRC.
MPAC Strategy Meeting is the second Saturday of each month from 10-12.
MPAC - Legislative Strategy Meeting every Tuesday at 5:30 pm.
Arts Programming Team - meets weekly Thursday mornings at 8:00am.
MPAC Website Committee: meets weekly, Wednesday at 5:00 pm
MPAC - Development and Communications Committee meets bi-weekly on Mondays at 8:00 am.
MPAC - grant committee meets weekly Tuesday evenings.
MPAC - Ways of Working committee meets as needed.
MPAC - staff continues to support formerly incarcerated individuals in reentry, with transport, peer to peer support. One on one and in group settings.
On-going: Advocacy, correspondence, and Direct Dialogue.
MPAC Strategy Meeting - we held the Monthly Community Strategy Meeting in January to align partners, staff, and community members around shared priorities in reentry, systems accountability, and community safety.
MDOC - Linda is working with MDOC to develop a SCCP workshop. The workshop will serve as a pilot for WC and SMWRC with the intention to bring to all of the prisons and prereleases
MDOC - MPAC staff and contractor updated their DOC volunteer training.
MCC Longtimers - Linda gathered testimony from incarcerated women on parole and clean slate. We organized and lined up readers for testimony during public hearings.
Advocacy Coalition- On track, meets weekly!
MSP - Inside Vision film screening cancelled --short staffed
MSP-NAACP - MLK event was well attended. Atlantic Black Box coordinated guest speaker Bob Greene. The Keynote speaker was Mana Abdi State House Representative from Lewiston. ABB potentially doing a BHM event at MSP with Kate McMahon. Supporting MSP Juneteenth plans at MSP potentially with chef Louis Pickens of Black Betty Bistro providing food, Kenya Hall/Samuel James(?) music and possible keynote address by Bates College president Garry Jenkins.
No Penobscot county jail - met with Courtney Morgan who is a system-impacted individual living in Bangor. Connected her to the group.
Projects:
Paco's Place- program team is finalizing our tenant selection plan, lease agreement, and house rules.
MPAC Clemency and Appeals project - MPAC and MSP-NAACP honored Jeff Evangelos and his tireless work for incarcerated people.
Guide for Filing Grievances - on track
Reentry Support- MPAC supported 8 individuals with mutual aid.
Gallery Exhibit Project: Inside Vision- After four months at the Francis Hotel in Portland, Adriane Herman deinstalled the Inside Vision show. Nicole Lund and Jan Collins transported the exhibit to Farmington where it will be installed at the Emery Arts center of the University of Maine on February 9th and remain up until March 13th. The topic of the exhibit is Recovery and the gallery opening will be from 5-7:00pm on Thursday, February 12th. Nicole has agreed to curate the exhibit in May at the Brunswick UU Church and the Maine Arts Commission exhibit at the Cross Building in June, July, and August.
The monthly film series at MSP has been cancelled on the day-of four months in a row by administration at MSP due to lock downs of the facility. Two plans to meet with administration at MSP to discuss the art program, film series, MSP library and future collaborations have been cancelled/postponed. Hope to reschedule late February but unconfirmed so far.
Collaborations at MCC continue to be productive. Jon donated a PA system to the women’s Reentry as they currently do not have one and another to MCC, along with several acoustic guitars. An ongoing winter concert series at SMWRC will next feature rapper Myles Bullen on March 3rd (rescheduled from Feb due to the snowstorm), a second Smorgasbird series, lithograph printing and more. Lindsey Bourassa and FLOR Flamenco are planning to offer flamenco workshops at SMWRC in the Spring with hopes of a longer class and performance, Sept-April, pending grant funding. Inside Vision currently in discussions to collaborate with Reentry Sisters and the Can Art Change the World? Foundation to do a series of public story-telling projects around Maine, starting in the Spring and culminating in the Fall. Inside Vision piloting a one-on-one weekly artist mentorship program between Indigo Arts Alliance’s Daniel Minter and MSP resident artist F Daly. Jon attended the premiere of a new film made inside Long Creek YDC made by Smooth Feather Productions - great turnout and participation.
Mountain View Correctional Facility would welcome a volunteer artist if we could find someone in the Charleston area that might be interested.
Mainecare- planning to survey two youth groups about their experiences accessing health-care after reentry.
Youth Justice- Andre “my biggest highlight of the month is taking 12 youth to testify at the State House. Their testimonials were so good I got kicked out of Long Creek.:
Youth Justice - working with troubled youth at Westbrook High School. I have a weekly meeting in the school every Monday at 10:30 a.m.
Youth Justice - youth receives support with their weekly check ins with Longcreek.
Youth Justice- visited youth from Newport, Dexter, and Lewiston. I've given youth rides from Biddeford Saco to Portland as well as Westbrook. Youth are given rides to school, and work. I also do home drop offs and friend drop offs. If I'm not available for rides, I put in Ubers for you if I deem their situation important.
Youth Justice- 50 youth on Snapchat. Breaking Bread with Kids in groups and 1 on 1.
Brennen Center- Linda and Joseph reviewed and provided input on the Brennen Center preliminary report.
Reentry Sisters- attended the MLK day event in support of the MSP-NAACP.
IAF- MPAC is participating in broad-based organizing efforts and has served as host for two Sponsoring Committee meetings. The purpose of these meetings is to support coalition infrastructure, shared strategy, and accountability across partner organizations.
MPAC/MIO Re-entry Program - Adult Reentry Community Meetings happened weekly throughout January. Each week the Co-ED group continues to grow. The objective is to provide consistent, relationship-centered space for system-impacted adults returning to society.
Communications:
MPAC - Brandon Brown is our communications lead.
transitioned to take Daria’s comm duties.
Working to understand the website, social media profile, and other MPAC tools for communications. Researched how to use squarespace, and continued learning necessary platforms.
communicated with incarcerated supporters around legislative efforts, regarding current legislation.
Prepped attended and testified at parole and clean slate public hearings.
Edit and finalizing grievance guide for website.
created a comms plans and lists of outstanding tasks that needs work.
Google Group: Volunteer Isabelle Humblot has kindly agreed to edit and publish the weekly newsletter until Brandon is ready to take over the effort. Isabelle is amazing in her ability to bring together worldwide news in the legal justice realm, our weekly calendar and our legislative agenda collate the materials and professionally format.
MPAC - new YouTube channel MPAC YouTube channel
Public engagement - on track
Grant Support & Strategic Planning
The focus is on sustainability and forward planning.
MPAC’s grant revenue target for calendar year 2026 is $425,000 in awarded funds.
Based on typical award rates, this will require actively pursuing and submitting a higher volume of grant proposals, with total requests projected to exceed the awarded target.
Donors/ funders:
Grant team meets weekly.
Donate Button Zeffy platform
individual monthly donations Zeffy - 170
MPAC- Maine Initiatives 7500.00
MPAC- MeHAF- 25000.00
MPAC- Maine Initiatives 83.99
MPAC- Maine Initiatives 751.98
Legislative:
Assistant Director Jan Collins leads!
Legislative Committee Meetings - meets Tuesdays at 5:30pm each week.
Legislative- The legislative session began full throttle with all three of our priority bills being heard in the first two days of the session. Clean Slate has had a hearing and one work session, the second session was cancelled, the Ombuds bill has had a hearing and one work session, the second one should be scheduled soon, the parole bill has had a hearing and two worksessions with a third work session likely to be scheduled the week of Feb 9th. We have also testified regarding 5 other bills and attended work sessions for those bills as well.
Peter's Update:
January, 2026, I researched, wrote and presented testimony on nine bills in the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee and the Judiciary Committee at the Statehouse in Augusta. This included “our” Ombudsman and Parole bills as well as the Clean Slate bill, various other record sealing bills, funding for criminal defense/public defender, and publicity about wanted juveniles.
In collaboration with Disability Rights, Peter worked to address issues with people losing their cars because they are towed while the owner is hospitalized or arrested. This involved researching abandoned vehicle statutes and practices in Maine and in other states. This has also involved attending meetings of a “Working Group to Study Potential Regulation of the Towing Industry” created by the legislature and convened by the Secretary of State, at least weekly in January
Peter maintained the legislative tracker and published a weekly update of the bills we are following.
Legislative Update- MPAC’S 2025 Legislative Tracker
Strategic Partnerships: ongoing- MaineTransnet, GLADD, Portland Outright, MIO, MYJ, Maine Law School, Disability Rights, Maine Equal Justice, ACLU, Muskie, Recovery Connections, Recovery Housing, JJAG, Women’s League of Voters, MPRN, MPDA, MSP-NAACP, Colby College, Bates College, UMA, RJIM, Maine Immigrants, Maine Family Planning, Maine Humanities Council, FAMM (Families for Justice Reform).
New Partners- Pubic Health Committee for Maine Medical Association, Knox-Waldo Sexual Assault Response Team (SART), Maine Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women. No Penobscot County Jail Expansion, ME-RAP, Southern Maine SURJ(Standing Up for Racial Justice), Amistad, Maine CDC, Vera Institute, Curative, Augusta Recovery Center, Reform Alliance, College Guild, Project Home, Maine Health Equity Foundation, Orange Bike Brewing Company, Friends of LongCreek, Groundwater Institute, Volunteers of America, Brennan Center, Maine Arts Commission, Maine Clean Slate Coalition.
