Impact of Maine Inside Out

Maine Inside Out (MIO) was founded with the intention of building a movement for transformative justice, in which communities acknowledge and attend to the social, structural, and systemic roots of crime and harm. Since MIO first began in 2008, hundreds of young people impacted by incarceration in Maine have raised their voices in spaces where the decisions that affect their lives are being made.

MIO has created powerful art and traveled around the state and the country to share it. MIO has led workshops in public schools and university classrooms, held forums with candidates for public office, and provided peer support in navigating the significant challenges of building a life after incarceration. Maine communities are stronger because these young people are in them, sharing stories of lived experiences, connecting across boundaries and leading us forward. 

A core element of MIO's strategy is hiring and training program alumni who have participated inside correctional facilities or in the community to lead and facilitate MIO workshops in their local schools and communities in order to build a formal pathway for generational mentoring, social change, and leadership. 

Based on statewide data, Lewiston and Portland have the highest and most concentrated rates of youth referral to the behavioral health system and the Department of Corrections. These referrals are disproportionately for BIPOC youth. MIO’s in-school theater programming began in 2022 and is designed to interrupt the school to prison pipeline. 

MIO’s program evaluation with Mindbridge looks at “belonging” as a key indicator of student outcomes, and indicates that students experience higher levels of connection to family and friends, as well as an increasing sense of safety in school and more positive feelings about the future, correlated with participation in MIO programming. In addition, students report that their responses to challenging situations have shifted in positive ways due to their participation in MIO programming. Teachers and staff are increasingly supportive of MIO’s work and receptive to the stories and calls to action from students, and have begun to see MIO as a resource for alternatives to suspension.

Imagination can help us find the way to transform oppression and tell a new story.

Embodying the transformation with our art is practice for realizing it in the world.