Sing Sing Correctional Facility

New York's first state prison, Newgate, opened in New York City in 1797. Newgate was quickly found to be unsatisfactory due to poor construction and the impossibility of developing viable industries. As a result, a commission was formed in 1825 (Chapter 25) for the purpose of building a new state prison in the first or second senatorial district, based on the design of Auburn Prison, which opened in 1816. The commission was authorized to sell Newgate and was appropriated {dollar}70,000 to erect a prison to house 800 convicts. The commission chose a site named Mount Pleasant in the town of Sing Sing (now Ossining) and purchased 130 acres of land formerly worked as a silver mine. Plans were immediately drawn up for the construction of the prison and work progressed steadily (although somewhat slowly) by utilizing convict labor from Auburn and Newgate prisons. By the middle of 1826, 169 men were confined in the prison while the rest of the cells were being completed. In may of 1828, the entire inmate population of Newgate was transferred to the prison and the building itself was finished that October. Newgate was sold for {dollar}100,000. By the end of 1828, Mount Pleasant's prison population was 513. In addition to prisoners sentenced to crimes above Grand Larceny, the male population included mentally incompetent and insane criminals. These men were segregated from the rest of the prison population until 1848, when insane men were transferred to the Utica State Hospital. In 1854 the legislature prohibited this practice. In 1859 Auburn Prison opened the first facilities designed especially for the criminally insane. Prior to 1848, supervision of Sing Sing was entrusted to a local board of inspectors who were appointed by the governor and the senate and who resided in the vicinity of the prison. The constitution of 1846 changed this system by providing for the election of three inspectors of state prisons. These men were granted supervisory powers over Sing Sing (as well as the other state prisons) and appointed all of the officers therein. The day-to-day supervision of the prison belonged to an agent and a warden appointed by the inspectors. The agent purchased the supplies, negotiated and controlled contracts, and oversaw the financial matters while the warden supervised the overall operation of the prison. According to Chapter 459 of the laws of 1847, the agent was to provide the inspectors a full account, accompanied by the necessary vouchers, of all monies received and expanded by him on account of the prison. He was also mandated to send to the comptroller a general account of the receipts and expenditures for each month and an abstract of the expenditures in detail. The warden was to keep a daily journal of the proceedings of the prison in which every infraction of prison rules and regulations by prison officials was recorded. In addition records were to be kept of every punishment inflicted on a convict, the nature, amount and by whom, and convict complaints regarding bad or insufficient food, lack of clothing, or cruel and unjust treatment by a prison keeper. In addition to these records, the keepers were to keep a correct daily account of the labor of each convict. The doctors and chaplains were required to make reports to state inspectors and to keep a daily record of all admissions. Except for the razing and erection of buildings within the prison, the establishment and elimination of inmate programs reflecting correctional theories of different eras, and fluctuations in the number and composition of the inmate population, the history of Sing Sing and other state prisons is essentially the same, the only real change occuring in the administration of the prison. In November of 1877, the electorate approved of a constitutional amendment creating the office of Superintendent of Prisons. This superintendent was appointed by the governor and was empowered to appoint all of the officials connected with New York's prisons. These officials were mandated to generate records as provided for in Chapter 107 of the Laws of 1877 which in essence was a rewording of the 1847 statute as far as recordation is concerned. In 1926, Chapter 606 reorganized the state government and established the Department of Correction. This act provided for a Commissioner of Correction to assume the powers of the superintendent of prisons as well as for the generation of records that had been outlined in two previous laws. The statute also provided for the continuation of the New York State Commission of Prisons (now renamed the Commission of Correction) which had been established in 1895 to aid the superintendent of prisons in the supervision of the facilities through regular site inspections. This administrative structure remained intact until 1970 when the Department of Correctional Services was established by Chapter 475 of the Laws of 1970. This organization places the state's prisons under the superintendents of prisons (formerly wardens). At about this time, Sing Sing became formally known as the Ossining Correctional Facility. The Commissioner is mandated by law to "prescribe a system of accounts and records to be kept at each correctional facility" and to "make rules and regulations for a record of photographs and other means of identifying each inmate received into the facility." In addition, the enabling legislation requires the daily recording of fiscal matters and proceedings by the superintendent to be submitted on daily and annual dates to the Commissioner. The exact wording of this section of the law is very similar to the statute passed in 1847 that originally mandated what records would be kept by prison officials. In 1984 the prison was renamed the Sing Sing Correctional Facility. It remains a maximum security prison.