Insights Learned in Prison

Author Piper Kerman gives a very candid talk about prison life, not just talking about how she felt, but also about the people she met.

Kerman’s story comes straight out of her now famous memoir ‘Orange Is the New Black,’ in which she was arrested at the age of 34 for a drug crime she committed when she was 23. Kerman shares what she learned in prison about herself, the people who are there and the system itself. Kerman pushes for reform, specifically in how we incarcerate non-violent offenders and how we would rather incarcerate those who we consider inconvenient (people who suffer from mental health and the poor) rather than help them. She urges everyone to share their own personal stories of incarceration like she did.

Piper Kerman ends her talk about prison life by stating how important it is that people know the real story of real people in prison, because once we do that, we will begin to recognize incarceration as a real problem.