The Impact News

Issue date: 12/21/08 Section: News

The men of Sing Sing who are involved in the Hudson Link college degree program.

Elliot is in many ways a typical Mercy senior.
Like so many others, he has doubts about where his degree will take him in life. He ponders the odds of his success even while he studies. Not only is there a lot of homework to do, but a career seems a distant prospect at best, with obstacles left and right. Many of his peers skip the rigors of the classroom for the diversions of television, sports, and socializing.
Yet he isn't hanging out in the cafeteria, texting on the train, or worrying about the traffic on the Tappan Zee Bridge when he leaves class. Instead, he is an inmate at Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison, earning his degree behind bars.
Through an affiliation with Hudson Link, a volunteer program founded in 2000, Mercy College has brought the rigors of college-level coursework to the corridors of one of NY's maximum security prisons. The program offers the inmates of Sing Sing the chance to earn a behavioral science degree from Mercy. The supporters of the program believe that it represents a second chance, by granting them the opportunity to earn a degree while incarcerated.
Some question the merits of a program that offers inmates, particularly those convicted of violent crimes, anything good. But a lack of education is often partially to blame for a growing American prison population. And without educational opportunities while on the inside, job opportunities are non-existent on the outside. Without some learning experiences beyond vocational training, many convicts end up re-offending after parole, and land right back in prison.
Sixty seven percent of New York State's felony parolees end up back inside. Yet, Hudson Link's program at Sing Sing has graduated 120 men over 10 years with bachelor and associate's degrees. Thirty-five of them have been released to society, and not one of them has returned to prison, according to program's chief administrator.
Sean Pica, executive director of the program, beams when speaking of that statistic. Yet he stresses to skeptics that in no way is the degree being earned "dumbed down" for the 150 inmates currently earning degrees.
"It's not a college prison program," he said. "This is a college degree program that inmates happen to be a part of."

THE CYCLE OF LIFE

Todd still feels the pain of what he did so many years ago. And he knows to some people in the world outside of cement walls, barbed wire and guard towers, he'll never be forgiven.

Continued...

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