Hudson Link Hosts Graduation Ceremony at Sing Sing

From Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison:

Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison and its educational partner, Mercy College, will confer 29 degrees to student inmates serving time at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, NY at 10 a.m. Wednesday, June 1, 2016.

Ten men will receive their Bachelor of Science degrees and 19 their Associate degrees from Mercy College. Many of the men have worked more than eight years on their schooling while serving time and are the first in their families to earn their college degrees.

“This is so much more than the achievement of these guys receiving their degrees, said Sean Pica, Hudson Link’s executive director and an alumnus of its Sing Sing class of 2001. “It’s about changing the culture of the prison and the communities that they return to once they’re released.”

Founded in 1998, Ossining-based Hudson is the only nonprofit organization in the US founded and run by formerly incarcerated people that provides college education, life skills and re-entry support to incarcerated men and women across New York State. Education has shown to be a key link in preventing recidivism, with more than 400 Hudson Link alumnus released from prison since 2001, the agency’s recidivism rate remains low at less than four-percent.