Sing Sing (2025.13, Good Hope )

Sing Sing: Michael’s Moments

I rode the Metro North trains to and from New York City for several years in the late 80s.  As Sing Sing makes clear, the commuter train runs right through the middle of Ossining Correctional Facility, known as Sing Sing to most New Yorkers.  Sing Sing was, and still is, a maximum-security prison, and to me, on that train every day, it was a surreal experience to ride right through a location housing what was labeled as some of the worst of New York’s criminals.  Founded almost two centuries ago, Sing Sing became the dreaded place where convicted felons were sent, and for a long time, electrocuted.  

614 men and women were electrocuted at Sing Sing until the death penalty was abolished in 1972.  And while inmates aren’t killed by the state anymore, life there isn’t exactly pleasant, and people die there that, had they been outside the system, would likely have survived.  But more importantly are the hundreds of Black and Hispanic people who are disproportionately convicted and sent to maximum-security facilities, like Sing Sing, to endure a certain kind of psychological death and torture.  And, as is likely in the case of Divine G, our leading character in Sing Sing, their conviction and sentence would likely not have been anywhere near as severe had they been white, like me, and with resources that our “class” allows.

Based on what I saw in the movie (and the unlikely circumstance that they would be allowed to film in a maximum-security prison), most of the interior shots in Sing Sing were likely filmed at the Downstate Correctional Facility in Fishkill, New York, a few miles north of Ossining.  That facility was closed in 2022 because there weren’t enough inmates to justify its continued operation.  (So much for Trumpsters arguing that there has been an increase in crime!)

What is important about this film, though, is how it represents a different approach to “corrections”.  Generally speaking, criminologists have largely given up on the notion of “rehabilitation” as an appropriate goal because, sadly, so many people are socialized in the prison experience not to reform, but to go deeper into the criminal mentality.  Such tendencies are amplified by the unequal application of the criminal justice system, leading to inaccurate and unjust results.  So the consequence has been not to rehabilitate a felon, but simply to isolate him/her to “protect” the greater population.  That, of course, does not augur well for the inmate.

And then there is this movie, Sing Sing, with its rightful emphasis on the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program.  The program started in 1996 at Ossining and was expanded in 2008 to additional New York correctional facilities.  So far, at least 230 incarcerated individuals, men and women, have participated.  Studies show that RTA participants incur fewer infractions and have successfully expanded their education, including obtaining GED and post-GED coursework.

All very good, but here is the killer statistic: The overall national recidivism rate (percentage of released inmates who are later convicted of a felony) is 60% – in other words, rehabilitation largely fails.  But the recidivism rate among RTA participants is a minuscule 3%!  Rehabilitation is possible!

Watch Sing Sing and see how that might just work.  (3.2*)

Sing Sing: What Others Think