“After visiting Sing Sing so many times, did you start to sympathize with the prisoners?” “What prominent factors allowed you to keep hope?” “Do you think the system can change?”
Students at John Jay High School had the opportunity ask thoughtful questions like these in a conversation with Dan Slepian, a Dateline producer who has spent two-decades working to free innocent people, and Eric Glisson, a wrongfully incarcerated individual who served 18 years for a crime he did not commit.
The school-wide discussion, arranged for by teacher Vicky Weiss, curriculum leader for the English Department, was the capstone event in John Jay’s summer read of “The Sing Sing Files: One Journalist, Six Innocent Men, and a Twenty-Year Fight for Justice,” written by Slepian, and featuring Glisson.
The morning gave students an inside look at the criminal justice system, and a vivid example of the personal traits that shape one’s life: forgiveness, focus on purpose, and above all, hope.
“Mr. Slepian and Mr. Glisson unlocked an empathy we cannot derive from a screen,” said student Sophia Cheng.
Slepian described his deep empathy for those in prison who he’s met over his journey.
“I’ve come to believe that most incarcerated people are good people who made terrible mistakes when they were young,” said Slepian. He said that he realized that “innocent until proven guilty” is a marketing slogan for a system that prioritizes winning.
He called the students lanterns of knowledge. “You’ve read my account. You know. You are the antidote to this travesty.”
Glisson spoke about hope. He recalled spending hours in Sing Sing’s law library each day. “Every time I read in a law journal that someone was exonerated, I’d make a copy of the article and put it on my wall. That was my wall of hope. I looked at it each day.”
“My experience in prison made me stronger,” Glisson said to the students. “It made me feel like a phoenix.”
“Be in service for other people,” said Slepian. “That’s how this world is going to change.