Corrections_Today_Winter_2025-2026_Vol.87_No.4

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Rev. Ed Muller, began meeting with a group of incarcerated men for self-reflection and mutual support. The group later became known as “Exodus”, drawing its name from the Biblical story of the Israelites journey from Egypt through the wil derness and towards the promised land. This journey was a metaphor for prison life and the preparation for release, while grounded in liberation and transformative concepts. In 1982 Rev. Muller, along with Bill Webber, President of the New York Theological Seminary, directed and launched a Master of Profes sional Studies (MPS) degree program for the incarcerated in Sing Sing, and eventually Bedford Hills prisons. Since its inception, this first-in the-country Master’s program in Theology has graduated more than 600 incarcerated men and women. A prison uprising In September of 1971, New York experienced one of the most sig nificant prison uprisings in U.S. history. Attica prison in upstate New York, with a population of about 2,000 men, took control of D-yard, seized 39 hostages, and issued a list of demands relat ing to overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, facility improvement, educational opportunities, fair visitation terms and political rights. After four days of stalled negotia tions, armed state troopers stormed the prison using tear gas and live ammunition. In the uprising, 29 inmates and 10 hostages died. The massacre became, at the time, a symbol of the national struggle for prison reform and civil rights.

Photo courtesy Nexus Creative Design

A model of the Sing Sing Prison Museum.

Expansion into darkness

their peak in 1999 with a total of 73,233 individuals behind bars, a quadrupling since 1960. At the turn of the millennium, New York, together with Florida and Califor nia, were the top three states in the country in terms of absolute num bers of incarcerated people. Not an enviable position for a state home to the Statute of Liberty. The 1990’s started as very tough years. Prisons were filled to capac ity, and in 1994 Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (VCCLEA), a pro vision of which revoked Pell Grant funding (for higher education) “to any individual who is incarcer ated in any federal or state penal institution.” Glimmer of hope towards the millenium

In the early 1970’s, President Richard Nixon officially declared a war on drugs, calling drug abuse “public enemy number one”. In the 1980s, the war on drugs shifted towards aggressive policing instead of treatment and prevention. Drug possession and distribution was criminalized, especially involv ing crack cocaine. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 further added to the steadily growing stream of people entering prison from Black and Latino communities, where crack cocaine — and racism — were more prevalent. Existing prison facilities had to shift to double bunking in their six by nine-foot cells while many new prison facilities were built in the northern part of the state. Accord ing to NYS DOCCS statistics, New York incarceration levels reached

Corrections Today | Winter 2025-2026

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