LEWISTON — A daylong symposium Saturday, April 9, at Bates College is aimed at bringing together members of the legal community to brainstorm ways of reforming criminal justice in Maine.

Sam Boss, coordinator of community-engaged learning at the college’s Harward Center for Community Partnerships, said Wednesday that a full day of workshops are planned.

This is the first year organizers have offered the symposium, titled “Chaos or Community: Conversations on Criminal Justice Reform in Maine.”

The symposium is the outgrowth of the college’s Martin Luther King Program, Boss said, that focused this year on the theme of mass incarceration and its disproportionate effects on minority populations.

“In the course of our discussions, we were thinking about ways we could continue the conversation and extend them to the community,” Boss said.

His job includes finding ways to partner Bates students and community activities and needs through various local groups.

“I am aware of a lot of organizations who are working on justice reform issues in this community,” Boss said. “It seems like there’s a lot of great work that’s happening in the community. A lot of energy around reforming the criminal justice system, finding better ways to handle incarceration, better ways to deal with addiction, better ways to deal with re-entry into society for people who have been incarcerated.”

Some people who are an integral part of the criminal justice system don’t generally have a voice in needed reforms, he said.

Saturday’s event is expected to change that paradigm, giving the addicted and convicted a seat at the table.

Among the questions posed to panel members for discussion will be:

• How can community actors and the criminal justice system more effectively address the challenges facing some of Maine’s most vulnerable populations, including underserved youth and addicts, immigrants and ethnic minorities, trafficked and abused women and minors?

• What diversion programs have been most successful in helping offenders to avoid additional encounters with the legal system? and

• What more can be done to facilitate re-entry into society after incarceration?

Dr. Kaia Stern, lecturer in sociology and director of the Prison Studies Project at Harvard University, will deliver the keynote address at 1:15 p.m.

While the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, Maine has one of the lowest rates in the country, with 350 out of every 100,000 Mainers locked up as of 2013. Despite its relatively low rate nationally, that rate reflects a 300 percent increase since 1980, according to materials released by Bates.

That trend is compounded by a heroin epidemic that threatens to drive up those figures “and the shortcomings of the current system continue to create new challenges for law enforcement officials, inmates and the families and communities they return to upon their release,” a symposium news release reads.

“Increasing attention to the human and financial costs of mass incarceration has intensified calls for reform from across the political spectrum and greater public awareness has created an opening for collective action.”

What: Chaos or Community: Conversations on Criminal Justice Reform in Maine, a day-long symposium featuring four panel discussions with law enforcement officials, judges, prosecutors, corrections workers, social workers and former convicts.

Where: Bates College, Commons building, 136 Central Ave., second floor. Public parking on Central Avenue and designated visitor parking on Bardwell Street, off Russell Street.

When: Saturday, April 9, 9:30 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.

How: Open to the public. Panel discussions are free. To register and make your paid lunch order, please go to bit.ly/1puhQww. Contact Sam Boss at [email protected] to receive more information.