This month marks Sing Sing Prison’s 200th anniversary. I always expected there would be more attention to this important milestone. Unfortunately, the events of the past few months—the murder of an incarcerated man at Marcy Correctional Facility; the wildcat strike of correction officers; the lockdown at Sing Sing and other state prisons—led to a decision by state officials to postpone any commemorations until a normal routine is restored including programs that support education and rehabilitation. This is the right course of action for all concerned.

At the museum, we continue to plan and create a full slate of activities in this anniversary year—walking tours, public lectures, performances and special events. Our first exhibition will open in Ossining’s Olive Opera House in the fall. We will launch a new membership program and continue to produce our popular e-newsletter. An initiative on religion and prisons is underway with generous funding from Lilly Endowment.

Is it possible to build a criminal justice museum at a moment when violence and conflict dominate the news about the state’s carceral system? Will our programs and exhibits engage and educate our audience about complex issues that have persisted for two centuries? Our board and staff are well aware of the challenges involved in achieving an ambitious mission. They share my belief that history is a relevant resource that helps us understand our own times. I am personally committed to creating an institution that offers a platform for the wide variety of perspectives that have defined our quest for justice in a democracy. I am convinced that we will become a leader in the national conversation about the purpose of prisons and make a positive contribution toward building a more just society.

​Readers of this column are encouraged to respond. Thank you.

Looking back, as human communities became more organized, more “civilized” if you will, they adopted similar and swift forms of punishment - generally of a physical nature. The Code of Hammurabi and then the Bible both recommend punishments along the lines of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” and this was more or less the formula followed for centuries.

It’s really not until the 19th century, and specifically in the brand-new United States of America, that the idea of incarceration -- that is confining offenders for an extensive period of time as the main form of punishment itself - was adopted.

Why?

Up until the American Revolution (1775 - 1783) criminal punishment in the Colonies followed the British methods -- fines, whippings, public shaming (think stocks and public cages), and the gallows.  And hanging wasn’t a punishment reserved only for murder, or what we today consider capital crimes, but was applied erratically at the whim of the local magistrate.  Thus, you would often find petty criminals -- burglars, horse thieves, forgers -- subject to it as well.

Incarceration then was generally brief, with individuals only held until their sentence could be carried out.  It was not in itself the punishment.

The American Revolution, with its rejection of a monarchical government and philosophical grounding in democracy and liberty, sought to approach punishment from a new perspective, seeking to avoid the barbaric practices of Europe.  This was also leavened by the Enlightenment belief that the “severity of punishment itself emboldens men to commit the very wrongs it was supposed to prevent . . . the countries and times most notorious for severity of penalties have always been those in which the bloodiest and most inhumane deeds were committed.”  (Beccaria 33)

Americans believed that the revolutionary idea of a more egalitarian society combined with a rational, certain, and humane system of punishment would deter all but a few offenders. 

What, then, should punishment look like in this new society?  The answer became incarceration: sentence an offender to spend a long term in prison to remove them from society, allow them to reflect on their crimes, and avoid the gallows.  That alone was thought to be enough.

But the logistics of these early prisons seemed only to increase crime.  Rather than the individual cells we think of today when we think of imprisonment, prisoners were housed in bunkrooms, fed in communal mess rooms, and allowed to mingle freely, contributing to widespread chaos with riots, escapes, and violence occurring frequently. 
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The ongoing prevalence of crime was truly perplexing to Americans:

Sources Consulted:
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Morris, Norval & Rothman, David, eds.   Oxford History of the Prison. Oxford University Press, 1995. 

“World Prison Population List” 14th edition, April 2024.  Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research, https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/world_prison_population_list_14th_edition.pdf

“An Essay on Crimes and Punishments.”  By the Marquis Beccaria of Milan. With a Commentary by M. de Voltaire. A New Edition Corrected. (Albany: W.C. Little & Co., 1872). Initially published 1764

My name is Guy Cheli, author of Images of America’s Sing Sing Prison. I was recently invited to The Gangster Museum of America at Hot Springs, Arkansas for an interesting interview. The Museum is an historic account of some of the most infamous and notorious gangsters of the 20s, 30s and 40s. History about the many underworld crime bosses who moved to Hot Springs to ease pressure from the FBI and each other can also be found there. Robert Raines the owner and director of the museum, thought I would be a great addition to his documentary about former mobster and Sing Sing inmate Owney Madden. In the documentary I was interviewed about the relationship between Madden and Warden Lewis Lawes.

The link between Madden and Sing Sing is very interesting. Owen (Owney) Madden’s life of crime began around 1910 in the Hell’s Kitchen section of New York where he led the Gopher Gang. Called a vicious killer by some, Madden began changing his ways after arriving at Sing Sing in 1915. By the time Lewis Lawes became warden in 1920, Madden was pretty much a model prisoner.

Soon after Madden’s parole in 1923, he started to profit from prohibition, becoming the king of bootlegging. He also opened the famous Cotton Club in Harlem, going on to own many night clubs including the very prestigious Stork Club. Warden Lawes allowed certain privileges to Madden and he was able to run his business from behind the walls of Sing Sing. Lawes even made Madden’s cohort, “Jimmy the Shiv” his personal
chauffeur allowing him to be his link to the streets. The Wardens wife, Mrs. Kathryn Lawes, and Madden were very close leaving her and her family protected on the outside.

Let’s learn a little more about the film. Sing Sing is a film directed by Greg Kwedar and co-written by Clint Bentley. It is inspired by the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at Ossining’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility. It centers on a group of incarcerated men working together to stage theatrical productions as part of a rehabilitation program. The cast includes professional actors such as Colman Domingo and Paul Raci, as well as formerly incarcerated men who participated in the program during their time in prison, such as Clarence 'Divine Eye' Maclin, Sean San José, and John 'Divine G' Whitfield, who collectively defined what is called the “RTA Process.”   Director Greg Kwedar reflects on the film’s journey, stating, “We’ve worked on this movie for over seven years, and every time I meet a new RTA participant or alumnus, I grow more confident that this is one of the most unique and transformative programs that I’ve ever encountered.”

Did you know that most students leave high school without an understanding of the Jim Crow era and its continued impact on our society? This issue is at the heart of Learning for Justice, the education arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The history of convict leasing is an important topic that has informed the way our criminal justice system functions today. Civic Season, which spans from Juneteenth through the Fourth of July, is upon us, so let’s do some learning for justice!

​This month we dove into the engaging and important podcast, Teaching Hard History, a production of Learning for Justice that helps educators and schools prepare students to be active participants in a diverse democracy. I listened to the episode, “Criminalizing Blackness: Prisons, Police and Jim Crow,” which takes a close look at the history of convict leasing. Convict leasing, the selling of prison labor to private interests, began almost immediately after emancipation, and principally affected African Americans. Because it was so profitable, “there was an effort to look for any opportunity to re-enslave or re-coerce Black labor.” New laws were put in place that criminalized small offenses, such as vagrancy, and made crimes that were formally considered misdemeanors, such as picking a strawberry (something that was common during the system of enslavement and might not lead to punishment), a felony that would land them a hefty prison sentence. Once in the prison system, prisoners could be sold from one private company (or person) to another, and labored building our nation’s coal mines, roads and railroads.

The episode takes us through informative interviews, such as the one quoted above with historian Dr. Chase, about the history of convict leasing, criminal justice in the Jim Crow era, and how best to teach this topic. It leaves us questioning the foundation on which our criminal justice system was built, and how its history has left a lasting impact on society. Honestly, this summary is just the tip of the iceberg of what you will learn in this episode; I hope you give it a listen!

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​Convict leasing is also a part of Sing Sing’s history. Sing Sing’s first structure was built using convict leasing; Men incarcerated in Auburn, NY came down the Hudson River to build a prison for New York State in 1825. The practice of convict leasing was slowly deemed illegal in NY State as legislators phased out the lucrative prison contract labor system between 1888-1894. To dive further into the history of convict leasing, we recommend reading Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America by Jen Manion (UPenn Press, 2015). This book explores the origins of prison labor alongside the idealism of this type of punishment and discipline.

One point that Manion develops well is how the hierarchies of race, class and gender outside the prison came to be practiced inside, as well. She suggests that political and reform idealism was dismissed in favor of profit. Black prisoners waited on white prisoners; English criminals received better work assignments than Irish. “Why leave a perfectly able black woman alone in her cell with her thoughts and prayers when she could help around the prison,” Eastern State Penitentiary staff said about the first woman, named Ann Hilton, to be incarcerated there. For Hinton, punishment was not solitary reflection, but coerced free domestic labor. We know that there continues to be a hierarchy to how work assignments are given inside carceral facilities today.

From the Prison Policy Initiative’s 2022 reporting, we learn that 58% of people in state prisons have a work assignment, such as janitorial duties (29%); food preparation (20%); working in a prison library, stockroom, barber shop, or similar (12%); groundskeeping (10%); and jobs doing maintenance, repair, or construction (7.4%). Interestingly, none of this work is qualified as “job training,” which only is offered to 10% of the population. Most of the work assignments help keep the prison functioning. This data helps me think about the stories from the early 1800s of women, immigrants, working poor, and the formerly enslaved, who were sentenced to prison only to find their “reform” work assignment to be another level of injustice.
 
Curating this reading and listening selection was a way of sharing 1) some founding writings of penitentiary visionaries, 2) the history of convict leasing and contracts, and 3) how prison labor is functioning today. It is clearly “hard history.” Here is yet another reason why the Sing Sing Prison Museum has a role to play in the ecosystem of incarceration in New York, and why teaching hard history is so important to the health of our civic participation and leadership.

To continue the conversation, join us for our next Short Attention Span Book Club coming up on June 25th.
 
RESOURCES:

• “Criminalizing Blackness: Prisons, Police and Jim Crow,” Teaching Hard History: Listen + Transcript | Apple Podcasts
• Liberty’s Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America, Jen Manion: JSTOR | Amazon

KEEP LEARNING:

• Labor in State Prisons today (data from 2022 article): The state prison experience: Too much drudgery, not enough opportunity | Prison Policy Initiative
• ​​About Civic Season: Made By Us | Civic Season
• The history of convict leasing and amazing photographs from the WPA era: The Convict Leasing System: Slavery in its Worst Aspects | Inside Adams (loc.gov)
• The ending of convict labor in NYS​: The End of Contract Labor and its Effects on the New York State Penal System in the Nineteenth Century | The NYC Criminal (fordham.edu)
• ACLU and GHRC Research Report: "Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers"

In honor of National Poetry Month, the SSPM highlights Reginald Dwayne Betts, a formerly incarcerated individual who is now an award-winning poet and lawyer. Additionally, he is the founder and Executive Director of Freedom Reads, an exceptional non-profit transforming access to literature within prisons by installing Freedom Libraries in facility housing blocks. The books chosen in these libraries are narratives of transformation, and also aid and confront the effect of imprisonment on the psyche/spirit. In addition to working tirelessly to get good books into the hands of incarcerated individuals, Betts is the author of a memoir and three collections of poetry. He recently transformed his latest collection of poetry, Felon, into a solo theater show that explores the post incarceration experience and lingering consequences of a criminal record
through poetry and personal stories.

In 2019, Betts won the National Magazine Award in the Essays and Criticism category for his NY Times Magazine essay that chronicles his journey from prison to becoming a licensed attorney, awarded a Radcliffe Fellowship from Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Emerson Fellow at New America, and most recently a Civil Society Fellow at Aspen. Betts holds a J.D. from Yale Law School. In Betts’ interview with Michal Martin, for Amanpour and Company, a PBS program and  organization under PBS, he speaks about the impact of incarceration on identity, the power of written word, and the importance of forgiveness (full interview in YouTube link provided below). “I didn’t believe that my life was more valuable than the risks I was taking” said Betts as a 16 years old – sentence of 9 years in an adult prison. Here are some additional excerpted highlights from this interview we are encouraging audiences to listen into:

“May 18, 1997 when I was sentenced. The judge said “I am under no belief that sending you to prison would help,” but he did it anyway. I was 5’5, 125 lbs and I had stories in my head (Makes me Wanna Holler, Malcolm X, read books about incarceration before it even happened to me) I understood what incarceration was, but finding out I would be gone for nearly a decade, you walk back to your cell, drained and needing a way to deal
with it. The way I dealt with it was to be a writer.”

“Real tensions between when we allow people to be truly forgiven, and forgiven based on the fact they have full access to society versus when we just need them to perform their guilt constantly. On the other hand, when will I allow myself to be forgiven, when will I stop feeling the need to perform my guilt publicly, and I don’t have the answer to either one of those.”

We checked out Felon from the Ossining Public Library and read the work cover to cover in one sitting. There is no doubt that reading and writing helps Betts process the wounds of the prison experience, as well as reconcile the mistakes and circumstances that lead to his arrest. The content is gripping; his lyrical command is one of true talent (no wonder he has earned so many awards!). Betts makes visible, and poetic, the very real problems and hurdles we have constructed for those desiring to reform, restart, and dream a new life upon release. I was particularly drawn to the ways Betts writes ideas of freedom and oppression in poems about voting or ambition. The link between reading and writing is deeply connected for Betts. In a recent Washington Post oped he wrote, “Prison is the world’s most universal method of torture, and books are central to the fight against disappearing that follows a prison sentence." Betts’s poem “Essay on Reentry” holds all of this in its minute particulars. “No words exist for the years that we’ve lost to prison.” As I read his writing, I could see the landscapes in gray “that had become them” while also seeing time in the abstract. The cadence draws the readers into the idea of “more years than freedom.” And the cumulative effect of all Betts’s labor- poetic, legal, and cultural- can help us all, systemically, and those behind bars, “find us some free.”

Learning Links:
Felon: Poems a book by Reginald Dwayne Betts (bookshop.org)
YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr3sJj78nT4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icQjIbX8TGg
Reginald Betts Website: https://www.dwaynebetts.com/

"Why do we conduct oral histories about incarceration? What is the significance of bringing these stories to light?” These are questions we ask internally at the Sing Sing Prison Museum as we plan to launch excerpts from oral history interviews; we have conducted this work over the past few years. We wanted to frame the videos and audio recordings in a light that would help audiences see the value of oral histories as a part of the archive, and the way a museum can be part of the work in the justice fields. We take inspiration from fellow nonprofit StoryCorp whose mission supports the idea that everyone has a story worth telling to “illuminate the humanity and possibility in us all.” What started as a tradition around the campfire has certainly changed and expanded in the digital landscape.

​Oral histories are crucial for contemporary museums since they offer first-hand accounts of events and experiences that may not be found in written records or other forms of documentation. When it comes to the US carceral system, oral histories can provide valuable insights into the experiences of incarcerated individuals, their families, and communities.

The Sing Sing Prison Museum builds understanding for our audiences using these firsthand accounts to show how the criminal legal system impacts individuals, and why reform is necessary. By collecting and sharing stories, museums help preserve the voices of those excluded from mainstream narratives. Oral histories can be a powerful tool in preserving the stories of marginalized individuals.

Our oral history project provides valuable insights into the experiences of those affected by the carceral system. Additionally, here at the museum, we can enhance the visitor’s experience by utilizing audio and video recordings to support other materials. This approach can lead to a visitor’s deeper understanding and empathy, but it also could lead to someone being inspired to volunteer, give money, or take action to improve opportunities for those inside and returning.

Oral histories play a vital role in museums. They help to narrate incarceration and reform, both past and present. These stories are crucial in bringing people together to imagine and create a more just and equitable society. They can also help in developing a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the issues surrounding mass incarceration, particularly for those who have been impacted by the US carceral system.

As we head into Black History Month in February, we wanted our reading and listening blog to reflect and celebrate Black achievement while also acknowledging where systemic racism continues in our justice system. Prison labor is one example of systemic racism. SSPM acknowledges that incarceration disproportionately and unfairly impacts Black people: they are 4 times more likely to be sent to jail than their white counterparts, more likely to serve time in prison for crimes they didn’t commit than their white counterparts; and, since the pandemic, Black Americans are going to jail more than white people. But even within these oppressive circumstances, Black voices rise up.

Last month, a historic lawsuit was filed in Alabama, alleging the state denies Black Alabamians parole to maintain its pool of workers. It brings renewed attention to the injustices of work policies and pay in US prisons. You can learn more here: https://truthout.org/articles/mcdonalds-kfc-burger-king-and-wendys-rely-on-alabama-prison-slavery

So for this installment of What We are Reading and Listening to at the SSPM, let’s dig into labor and workplace prison music.
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In order to illuminate the "black box" that is modern prison labor, Michael Gibson-Light, a Professor of Sociology and Criminology in Denver, CO wrote and researched Orange-Collar Labor: Work and Inequality in Prison (2022). The book chronicles eighteen months of ethnographic observations within a medium-security prison as well as eighty-two interviews with currently incarcerated men and institutional staff members tasked with overseeing them.

With the plethora of digital content available these days, one expansive example of the obscured views and sounds within prison walls is the historic recording work of Alan Lomax. An ethno-musicologist Alan Lomax made recordings and these have been preserved by many organizations including the Library of Congress’ Archive of Folk Song and the LC’s American Folklife Center. A good place to start with such expansive options is a 2020 podcast called Been All Around the World. Specifically, take a listen to the music discussed in this episode “Making it in Hell:” Parchment Farm, 1933-1969.
https://archive.culturalequity.org/podcast

Parchment is a notoriously brutal and inhumane prison located in Mississippi. Lomax focused on Black “work songs” noting, “these songs are a vivid reminder of a system of social control and forced labor that has endured…” If you are ambitious, consider entering the word prison in the search bar to unlock hours of exploration and listening: https://archive.culturalequity.org/

Singing while doing hard labor makes perfect sense – but there was no singing in the 19th century marble quarries at Sing Sing Prison. Silence was strictly enforced.We imagine that the silence was deafening, but reading and listening is one way to take so many voices off mute.

Last year, renowned rapper and actor Common visited Sing Sing Correctional Facility, where he made music with men who participated in Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections and performed for the facility’s general population. While not songs for working, this video shows that music continues to create meaning in people’s lives while incarcerated. Here is some modern music listening: https://bit.ly/45oC7Hs

Notes (about race and incarceration):
https://news.yale.edu/2023/04/19/pandemic-prison-populations-fell-proportion-black-prisoners-rose
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/black-people-more-likely-wrongfully-convicted/

More Reading:
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/us-prison-labor-programs-violate-fundamental-human-rights-new-report-finds
https://corpaccountabilitylab.org/calblog/2020/8/5/if-prison-workers-are-essential-we-should-treat-them-like-it-prison-labor-in-the-us-part-i
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/24/us-prison-labor-workers-slavery-13th-
amendment-constitution
https://www.vera.org/news/justice-reform-101

More Listening:
Lomax talking about his work collecting songs in US prisons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw2O8hdlpfQ&t=148s
A Review about the Lomax podcast https://flypaper.soundfly.com/discover/making-it-in-hell-the-
lomax-prison-song-recordings-from-parchman-farm-1933-69/
Dig deeper into the photo archive at the Library of Congress that developed along with the audio
recordings https://www.loc.gov/collections/lomax/about-this-collection/
More information about the Carnegie Hall’s music program at Sing Sing
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Education/Programs/Musical-Connections

What we're reading: Austin Reed: The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict, published by Yale University Press in 2015, was edited and introduced by Caleb Smith, professor of English at Yale. This is a remarkable and rare memoir by an African-American man who spent more than thirty years incarcerated in various New York state institutions. In a compelling narrative, he reveals the "secrets and the habits of the convicts, with the mysteries and miseries of the Auburn Prison, together with the rules and regulations of the prison. . . " It is difficult and disturbing to read about the brutal conditions at Auburn. At the same time, Reed singles out individuals in the prison system who helped him and sustained him through his ordeal. Professor Smith's excellent introduction places Mr. Reed's story in the wider context of New York's prison history. Reed's manuscript had been unknown for 150 years until Yale's Beinecke Rare Book Library acquired it in a private sale in 2009. To read this book, please visit your local library or acquire it online.

What we're listening to: “Bryan Stevenson on How America Can Heal,” from The Grey Area with Steven Illing focuses on the confrontation the US must have with its own history. Guest Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative as well as a clinical professor at the New York University School of Law. He is also the founder of one of the most provocative and important new museums in the USA called the The Legacy Musuem: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration. The podcast’s themes of truth and reconciliation are the focal point of this episode – specifically, Stevenson emphasizes the question: “What is a healthy relationship for a society to have with its own history?” This conversation asks the listener to confront their own personal relationship with their history as well as looking from the perspective of a member of American society. Stevenson notes that our biggest problem is that a large part of our population is not adequately educated about the realities of the past three hundred years. To learn more, listen wherever you get your podcasts.