Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Orange Is the New Black by Piper Kerman

Orange Is the New Black by Piper Kerman.  This memoir makes you rethink the experience of being in a prison.  Ms. Kerman had transported drugs in her misguided youth.  She turned her life around, but her past caught up with her.   By the time she is found guilty and incarcerated she has developed a wonderful circle of family and friends to support her through her ordeal.  Although her sentence is relatively short, it is scary.  Understanding the unwritten laws as a prisoner is full of traps and pitfalls.  The whole book gives a bad impression of the people who run the prisons and are in charge of the prisoners, except for a very few exceptions.  Many rules are enforced on a whim and privileges are handed out on a whim, too.  Conditions are cold and sparse.  Work assignments are tough.  For her, food was often bad.  She has to tread carefully in social interactions.  Luckily for her she has visitors every weekend, lots of mail and receives lots of books from friends.  At the end of her sentence she is moved from one prison and taken to another to testify about her involvement in the drug ring all those years ago.  The conditions at that prison were much worse and there are more worries as the end of her sentence approaches.  Most disheartening of all the facts is that so many prisoners are given absolutely no help in turning their lives around when they are released.  Prison education programs are nearly non existent, poorly taught, and inefficient.  I’m not left feeling sorry for Ms. Kerman.  She had a privileged life to return to when she got out, a job ready for her, and friends and loved ones to support her. But, doing the time was hard.  She knew the drug business was wrong and it caught up with her.  In prison she saw what the drug cycle did to the lives of inmates.  The best result of her experience is that after she got out she is helping others.  8 out of 10.