Corrections_Today_Winter_2025-2026_Vol.87_No.4

News&Views

CORRECTIONAL CHAPLAIN PERSPECTIVES

Sing Sing’s 200 th anniversary 50 years of major changes in New York State By Sharon Griest Ballen, Dr. Hans Hallundbaek and Daniel F. Martuscello, III

In this article, we will discuss the early history of the NYS Carceral Sys tem, plus a Town Committee and a new Commissioner who are changing the course of carceral action. Early history N ewgate, the first New York State prison, operated from 1797 to 1828 in Greenwich Village in New York City, a solid mile southwest of where the Empire State Building was erected in 1930. Upon closing the prison in 1928, the inmates moved “up the river” 34 miles north to the new, and much larger Sing Sing correctional facil ity built high on the banks of the Hudson River in Ossining. From here, the incarcerated, looking south down the river, have a nostalgic view of the distant New York City skyline. Sing Sing prison was built in 1825, using the hard labor of about 100 prisoners transferred from the Auburn state prison. Auburn opened in 1817 close to the Canadian border to help relieve the overcrowd ing in Newgate prison in New York City. Auburn prison is historically

New York State Archives, Sing Sing Prison. Photographs of Sing Sing Prison, ca. 1920-1940. B1514-97, Box 1, photograph no. 19.

Three men posing outside a row of cells at Sing Sing Prison, circa 1920-1940.

significant in the United States for the “Auburn System” of incarcera tion, highlighting enforced silence, group lockstep, hard work and harsh punishment for rule-breaking. Head of the Sing Sing construc tion, and its first warden, was a

colorful former military- trained individual, Elam Lynds, who was a strict disciplinarian, and co developer of the Auburn System. Reportedly, he and all of his cor rectional staff constantly wore a whip and applied it liberally to the

Corrections Today | Winter 2025-2026

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