Miracle at Sing Sing: How One Man Transformed the Lives of America's Most Dangerous Prisoners

by Ralph Blumenthal

Book Overview

In 1919, Lewis E. Lawes moved his wife and young daughters into the warden's mansion at Sing Sing prison. They shared a yard with 1, 096 of the toughest inmates in the world-murderers, rapists, and thieves who Lawes alone believed capable of redemption. Adamantly opposed to the death penalty, Lawes presided over 300 executions. His progressive ideas shocked many, but he taught the nation that a prison was a community. He allowed a kidnapper to care...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312308914
• ISBN13: 9780312308919
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

The Man Who Made Sing Sing Sing

Lewis Lawes was the warden of Sing Sing prison for nearly 25 years when previous wardens lasted a period of a few months to a few years. Those who were jealous of Warden Lawes criticized his methods of running the prison with his belief in treating the prisoners with respect and dignity while still maintaining discipline through mutual respect. Although several individuals walked to their death in the prison's electric chair Lawes was an opponent of the death penalty. He also felt it sad that several prisoners had to go to prison in order to learn a trade rather than in an educational system outside the prison. Since most of the prisoners never had an education beyond the sixth grade they should have been able to acquire a trade when academics was not suited to them. He often referred to the men in the prison as his "boys" and while in New York City he and his wife may have been in a restaurant when the waiter came over to them and said the meal was "on the chef", one of Lawes's former "boys." The same held true when riding in a taxi. The driver would say the ride was on him, one of the warden's former "boys." Lawes felt a special kinship towards the men he was in control of, and he felt personally offended and disappointed when in April of 1941 the worst breakout in Sing Sing's history occurred and two guards were killed. The inevitable criticism took place saying that Lawes was too lenient with his prisoners, but Lawes was not found to be at fault in what took place. Nevertheless, Lawes felt let down by what happened and he resigned shortly thereafter. Lewis Lawes was a very respected warden of Sing Sing prison, and regardless of the prison break that took place under his watch, he brought stability to the prison that went through several wardens over short periods of time that weren't able manage the situation they found themselves in. There are a few other books about Sing Sing prison that contain some overlapping of information found in this book, but I found it to be worth my time nonetheless.

Inspiring to Prisoners, Inspiring for Readers

The prison movie has been a staple for decades, with perhaps its peak in the thirties. It will come as a surprise that much of Hollywood's fascination for prison life, shown in pictures like _20,000 Years in Sing Sing_, was due to an enormously popular penologist, warden Lewis E. Lawes, who served at Sing Sing from 1919 to 1942. Indeed, Lawes wrote the book on which that movie is based, as well as other best-selling books turned into movies, and stage and radio plays. He liked being a media star, but he was also a devoted public servant with humanitarian aims for the prisoners in his charge. _Miracle at Sing Sing: How One Man Transformed the Lives of America's Most Dangerous Prisoners_ (St. Martin's Press) is an absorbing look at Lawes's work within the prison and without, and has lessons for our own time. Lawes started as a guard, moved into youth reformatories, and had success in getting the youths to work together. His successes took him to the intimidating assignment of warden at Sing Sing. Lawes wanted the job and campaigned for it, but he knew what he was up against; he was the seventh warden in four years. In his first address to the men, he even joked about the impermanence: "If you want to get out of this place quickly, you have to come in as warden." The men laughed, but they also heard from him that they would get privileges that they earned, and that as the warden walked the yard he wanted to be addressed on any subject they liked. He believed in sunshine, open air, sports and music as civilizing influences. His sports efforts became legendary. The Sing Sing Orioles played the New York Yankees (with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig) at Lawes Field in 1929 (Yankees 15, Orioles 3). The outcomes of the games didn't much matter. The effort meant a lot to "the boys" as he called them, and there were no incidents of foul play or attempts to take advantage of the crowds to escape. He had a cutthroat give him a shave every day, and other felons were nannies to his three daughters. There were failures, but there were countless inmates who learned some civilizing lessons and when free, remembered them. When Lawes visited New York, taxi drivers would refuse his fare: "It's on me, boss. I'm one of the boys." Lawes would have seen his greatest failure as his inability to curb capital punishment. When he got to the prison, he favored the electric chair, but as he saw it at work on the condemned, and as he realized that it was doing little for deterrence, he actively worked against it, even as he was responsible for the state-mandated deaths of one inmate after another. He also was aghast at the Baumes laws, which were similar to our three-strikes-you're-out philosophy, by which four-time losers were imprisoned without hope of ever leaving prison alive. Lawes viewed robbing men of hope as the greatest of crimes. The anecdotes of prison life given here are detailed and engaging. Blumenthal has sketched pictures of Charles Chapin, the wife-murderer who