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Society Impact

Empowering communities through social justice initiatives.

We help both private and public institutions address complex criminal, social, housing, and environmental justice issues through research and policy implementation.

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Yesterday's wisdom for today

February 23, 2026

"The right to criticize: the right to hold unpopular beliefs; the right to protest; the right of independent thought. The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood…Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in. The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed. ”
- Margaret Chase Smith, US Senator from Maine (1897-1995)

“Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means- to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal-would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this Court should resolutely set its face."
- Louis Brandeis, US Supreme Court Justice (1856-1941)

"Does the law exist for the purpose of furthering the ambitions of those who have sworn to uphold the law, or is it seriously to be considered as a moral, unifying force, the health and strength of a nation?"
- James Baldwin, writer and activist (1924-1987)

"I want everybody to know it did not cost the Edgecombe County sheriff’s office one penny. All we had to do was open the doors and let you come in to do what you do."

Capt. Oliver Washington, Edgecombe County Sheriff

Blogs & News

Last member of Peter, Paul and Mary pens book on spiritual journey to Maine

Peter, Paul and Mary perform at the Cumberland County Civic Center in 1985 to mark 25 years since the trio formed. Noel Paul Stookey was still a long way from Maine when he and his Peter, Paul and Mary bandmates heard one of their songs, “Lemon Tree,” on the radio for the first time. It was 1962, and the trio were riding across San Francisco Bay, heading to their first on-air appearance with the DJ who helped the track take off. They asked the record company representative dr

Penobscot Bay Press

Feb 17

50 years after Maine eliminated parole, lawmakers decline a chance to restore it

The Maine State Prison in Warren The likelihood of a veto by Gov. Janet Mills, who opposes the effort to reestablish a parole system, hung over debate at the Capitol. Read the full article in the Portland Press Herald .

Portland Press Herald

Feb 16

Testimony in favor of L.D. 1941

The following is the testimony I gave before the Maine State Legislature's Judiciary Committee in favor of Representative Nina Milliken's L.D. 1941, An Act to Implement Recommendations of the Commission to Examine Reestablishing Parole. Good morning Senator Carney, Representative Kuhn, and respected members of the Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary. My name is Benjamin Miller, and I am an associate of Society Impact of Portland, Maine. We are a statutory public benefit com

Benjamin Miller

Feb 9

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"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."

- Howard Zinn