Programs I Support

These are the organizations and initiatives whose work I stand behind — programs that have shaped my life inside Sing Sing, and movements pushing for a more humane system from every angle.

Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison #

Hudson Link makes a college education possible for incarcerated men and women across New York State. I’m currently a student through Hudson Link at Sing Sing, where I’m pursuing writing and psychology. Their work is the reason this site exists — and the reason I have the language to put on it.

Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) #

AVP is a peer-led practice in conflict resolution, communication, and nonviolence that runs workshops inside and outside prisons. I’m a trained AVP facilitator and lead workshops at Sing Sing. The work is plain and powerful: people learning, in real time, how to choose something other than harm.

Jay Act Advocacy & Legal Reform Initiative (JAYACT) #

JAYACT is a justice movement confronting wrongful incarceration, medical neglect inside correctional facilities, and the systemic failures behind both. Built around the story of Jose “Jay” Rodriguez, the initiative organizes families, advocates, and incarcerated voices — including Sing Sing’s own Raymond Wallace — around concrete legal and policy reform.

Pillars of Promise #

Pillars of Promise is a New York-based advocacy organization built around a simple mission: to elevate the voices of currently and formerly incarcerated individuals through advocacy and support. Their work centers writing, public speaking, and direct organizing — making space for the kind of first-person testimony the system has historically silenced.

Action Lab NY #

Action Lab is a community-based organization with deep roots in Ossining and Ridgewood, and a co-sponsor of Beyond the Block at Sing Sing. Their Belafonte Fellowship and arts-and-culture programming make space for the kind of public storytelling that brought BEYOND into the world.

Make ART Mandatory in K–12 Schools #

A petition started by DeShawn Kenner calling for Aggression Replacement Training (ART) — a curriculum currently deployed only after youth enter the juvenile justice system — to be made mandatory across K–12 schools. The premise is straightforward: emotional regulation is a learnable skill, and teaching it early prevents the kind of escalation that ends in harm, incarceration, or loss of life.

Center for Justice at Columbia University #

The Center for Justice at Columbia, led by psychology professor Geraldine Downey, is a research and advocacy hub working at the intersection of scholarship, policy reform, and the perspectives of people directly shaped by the criminal legal system. Their work brings empirical research and incarcerated scholars’ testimony within reach of the legislators and courts who decide how punishment is structured — most recently through Ending Endless Punishment and the campaign for New York’s Second Look Act.

Ending Endless Punishment — The Second Look Act Report #

The Center for Justice’s May 2026 report builds the case for New York’s Second Look Act: legislation that would let courts revisit sentences measured in decades, based on who a person has actually become rather than who they were at the moment of conviction. Drawing on criminological research, comparative state experience, and the testimony of incarcerated scholars across New York State, it lands on a premise the system has written into law but rarely honors — that punishment should remain responsive to change over time.