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Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a working maximum-security prison where the theories and realities of criminal punishment and rehabilitation have played out for almost 200 years. It's a place with many stories to tell.
Located outside the prison walls, the new Sing Sing Prison Museum will unlock the history of this world-famous institution through exhibits, artifacts, and experiences. The museum aims to take center stage in the urgent national conversation about criminal justice and incarceration. In illuminating these issues, in telling these stories, Sing Sing Prison Museum will tell us much ourselves. |
A New Museum That...
questions how we treat each otherSocial justice and incarceration go hand in hand. Who should go to prison, and why? How should society treat people who perpetrate crimes? The museum will engage visitors with provocative questions about crime and punishment and provide interactive opportunities to challenge them to consider what works best for a civilized society.
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inspires and reflects pop culture The greatest artists and athletes have found inspiration here, from Babe Ruth to Houdini, Walt Whitman to Andy Warhol, Bessie Smith to Bruce Springsteen (whose maternal grandfather served three years in Sing Sing for embezzlement). The singer and his band performed here in 1972.
From Alias Jimmy Valentine (1915) to Analyze This (1999), Sing Sing has been immortalized in countless movies and shows (that’s an All My Children crew pictured above). |
tells the story of an iconic prisonAll will be placed in the context of their times, while never forgetting the victims. In the 1940s members of the notorious Brooklyn hit squad Murder, Inc., was sent up the river to the electric chair, most notably gang boss Louis “Lepke” Buchalter. Convicted killers Albert Fish, Ruth Snyder, David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz and bank robber Willie Sutton all did time at Sing Sing. Encounter names from the headlines as well as the unknown offenders whose stories are no less compelling.
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believes in second chancesCan performing Shakespeare or earning a college degree change lives? 95% percent of the men incarcerated at Sing Sing will return to their communities. Statistics show that those who participate in arts and education programs before release are far less likely to return. The Museum will align itself with the mission of organizations such as Rehabilitation Through the Arts and Hudson Link that help offenders prepare to succeed in their communities.
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listens to and respects those on the front linesEvery year Sing Sing Corrections Officers commemorate the death of one of their own during a deadly escape in 1941. It takes a small army to keep Sing Sing Prison working, and the job is not easy, safe or often appreciated. Yet the corrections officers can play a key role in the rehabilitation of inmates at Sing Sing. The Sing Sing Prison Museum will offer a realistic account of the challenges that the corrections officers, staff, and volunteers deal with on a daily basis.
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will enhance growth in the lower Hudson ValleyStarting with the Village of Ossining. Incorporated in 1813, the village has grown with and around the Sing Sing Prison for almost 200 years. (In 1901 the village changed its name from Sing Sing to Ossining.) Ossining will continue to grow in a new relationship with the museum’s estimated 130,000 visitors per year, which translates into tourist dollars and job opportunities that will revitalize downtown Ossining and fill restaurants and hotel rooms throughout the lower Hudson Valley.
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