Beyond the Bars Maine 2026

Each year we support our partners at the Opportunity Scholars to host the Beyond the Bars Conference in Maine. Beyond the Bars Maine supports women currently incarcerated in Maine and also brings togethers advocates, academics, and organizers to talk about the issues facing communities in Maine. 

On Tuesday, September 29, we visited the women inside Maine Women's Correctional Center for a day of programming. Center for Justice partner Chesray Dolpha spoke on a Building Narrative and System Change panel, talking directly with the women incarcerated there about how to use their story to create change. Later at the Opportunity Scholars Showcase & Discussion we heard about the coding work the women have been doing and learned about the new app development project they will be launching this year. 

On Wednesday evening, we screened our short documentary Degrees of Freedom at the University of Maine. CfJ's Cheryl Wilkins and Tammara McCoy followed the screening with a Q&A about the college program at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. They spoke from two sides of the same story: Cheryl as someone who helped create the program, and Tammara as someone who benefited from it decades later. The conversation showed how the program's impact has carried across generations, and the audience was deeply engaged and curious.

On Thursday, CfJ partner Yolanda spoke on a panel called Justice in the Body, and Cheryl introduced the keynote speaker and Beyond the Bars Fellowship alum Shawnda Chapman. Chesray Dolpha then led another energetic workshop on narrative storytelling. She looked at the kinds of stories we often hear about incarceration and gave participants tools to spot harmful narratives that need to be rewritten, and turned into stories of resistance and transformation instead.

Beyond the Bars Maine continues to be a supportive gathering for directly impacted people in the Northeast to grow their skills and knowledge to be powerful leaders in the movement to end mass incarceration.