NEWBURGH – Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison, a group that is providing higher education to male prisoners at Sing Sing and Fishkill correctional facilities, and to female prisoners at Taconic Correctional Facility, is working with the youth of Newburgh in hopes of curbing the city’s crime.

Inmate alumni of the program want to assist and Hudson Link Executive Director Sean Pica said while it is “a huge mountain to get over,” it does have promise.

“Everyone is saying that it is the most effective program that has been instituted in a long, long time,” he said. “Even when we go to high schools with the guys and let them speak at different high schools in New York and New Rochelle and upstate and downstate, the teachers will constantly say that they haven’t had that level of attention of the students in a long, long time.”

In Newburgh, Mark Wallace, a 2004 Hudson Link prison graduate is working as the youth violence coordinator in the Newburgh City Enlarged School District. He attributed much of the problems among Newburgh’s youth being a lack of jobs and available activities.