Criminal justice system affects us all, 'Orange Is the New Black' author says

Thursday, February 5, 2015
Addressing a DePauw University audience Wednesday evening, author Piper Kerman tells about the lessons she learned during 13 months in prison that enabled her to write the memoir "Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Woman's Prison." (Courtesy of DePauw University)

A year in prison has turned Piper Kerman into a criminal justice reform advocate, a best-selling author, a sought-after speaker, and Wednesday night, a guest lecturer at DePauw University.

Kerman, author of "Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Woman's Prison," told a DePauw audience she simply tried to invite the reader to step into her shoes or those of one of the other women depicted in the best-selling memoir.

"And to do that," she said, "I simply tried to paint a picture of what is it like to live your life, day to day, in a prison. What is it like to be a prisoner?"

Kerman, who served 13 months in a minimum-security federal prison in Connecticut, discussed "Lessons Learned Behind Bars" in a Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture at DPU. Her book is also the basis for a hit series on Netflix.

Kerman graduated from Smith College without a plan ("I really didn't have a clue what my next step would be") and wound up in a relationship with a drug dealer. In 1993, she was asked to carry a bag of money from Chicago to Brussels. Five years later, federal agents appeared at her door with an indictment.

She pleaded guilty and was sent to prison.

"The consequences of our actions always come back to us, in one form or another," Kerman told a Kresge Auditorium crowd of 1,020 dominated by students. "And sometimes it takes a lot longer than you think."

She added, "This was the beginning of my journey through the American criminal justice system, a system that, ironically, I knew very little about."

Using stark descriptions, empathy and humor, Kerman guided her audience through the prison experience, noting, "It's a community that no one wants to be a part of, and yet it is a community nonetheless.

"Prisons and jails are extremely harsh places to be. They are traumatic places to live, and that is very intentional. We build prisons and jails to be traumatic places, very much by choice."

More people are imprisoned in the United States than in any other nation in the world, Kerman said, noting America has five percent of the world's population, yet 25 percent of the world's prisoners. A third of the world's female prisoners are behind bars in the USA and the prison population of women has increased by 800 percent over the past 30 years.

There were 500,000 people in American jails in prison in 1980 versus 2.4 million today, a period in which the nation's crime rate declined, Kerman pointed out.

"Over the last 30 years, we have chosen to incarcerate people -- lock people away in prisons and jails -- who we never would have put in prison before, she stated. "It is quite shocking how easy it is to get locked up in this country for a low-level offense," Kerman asserted, and noted that two-thirds of women who are behind bars are in that category.

"When we incarcerate a woman, it usually does not affect just that individual. When a mom gets locked up, it has a seismic effect on her and her kids. And the children of a woman in prison are five times more likely to go into the foster care system than when we lock up a dad."

Kerman maintains an individual's race and class are important issues in determining who is sent to prison and how long they are sentenced to serve. As an example, she said African Americans are four times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than whites.

"I hope I don't need to convince anyone in this room that white people smoke just as much marijuana as anyone else, because they do -- the data shows that really clearly, too. But that disparity shows you, loud and clear, what we know from the history of our country, which is that the criminal justice system has been used as a tool of control over poor communities of color. And that was true for many years because racial inequality was the law of the land and law enforcement was used to enforce that. The law of the land now is that racial equality is the way things are supposed to be. In too many ways, the criminal justice system has not caught up, and it needs to."

While she made many friends behind bars who she still keeps in touch with, Kerman described the isolation an inmate feels, and how things like letters, visits and reading books are important to keeping connections between prisoners and the world beyond the facility they're housed in.

Those lifelines "are so critical to keeping a prisoner cognizant of the fact that they will some day get out of this hellhole and go back to the community -- they will return to the family and the people who write them, and the people who visit them, and the people who need them," she said, and be less likely to wind up back behind bars.

The system is flawed, Kerman says, because it doesn't work to rehabilitate or help those who are incarcerated. Many of the 700,000 people released from prison each year have trouble readjusting to society.

"Prisoners want and seek productive outlets for their energy, for their time -- something that will make that prison sentence not be a total waste of time. And far too few prisons and jails do anything to create those channels for positive energy."

After she was released from prison, Kerman says she faced questions from curious family and friends about what the experience was like. That prompted her to write "Orange Is the New Black," and she says the letters she sent from jail were invaluable as she collected her thoughts.

"I hoped that after reading the book someone might come away with a different idea about who is in prison in this country," Kerman shared. "Why are they there? What are the pathways that people find and follow into prison? And what really happens to people behind the walls? I also hoped that I might be able to get someone to pick up a book about prison that might not otherwise read a book about prison."

The acclaimed television show "Orange Is the New Black" uses Kerman's book as a foundation but there are many differences between it and her book.

"The show is not a biopic, it's an adaptation, and I don't think a faithful biopic would work very well," Kerman said. "I feel a tremendous amount of gratitude that the show is good and that the show is true to the spirit of the book."

Having a best-selling book become an Emmy-nominated show serves to shine more light on an issue that is hidden -- literally -- behind walls and away from society's gaze.

"I think popular culture helps people think about these issues differently," she noted. "And so I hope that's my contribution, helping to move these conversations outside of academia, outside of government, outside of, you know, the communities which are most directly impacted and into a much broader conversation. Because the criminal justice system affects all of us even if we are lucky enough to never set foot in a prison or a jail."

The evening ended with a book signing event. Kerman took time to talk with each person who waited in a long line, signing her last book at 11 p.m., two hours after the Ubben Lecture had wrapped up.

Established by 1958 DePauw graduates Timothy H. and Sharon Williams Ubben in 1986, the Ubben Lecture Series was designed to "bring the world to Greencastle."

The next program will bring Dan Quayle, the 44th vice president of the United States, back to his alma mater on March 31. Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck will share "Creating Your Personal Game Plan for Success" in a Friday, April 25 visit.

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