In May 1825, a group of prisoners arrived on the banks of the Hudson, thirty odd miles up river from New York. They began to build what would become their own jail — Sing Sing.

Don talks about the history of Sing Sing with Professor Lee Bernstein, historian of the American prison system and author of “America Is the Prison: Arts and Politics in Prison in the 1970s”.

Edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Freddy Chick. The Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

You can take part in our listener survey here.

All music from Epidemic Sounds.

American History Hit is a History Hit podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ireland Has Been a Success Story, Zingales Says