Laura Keating
lrk002@marietta.edu
Seventeen Marietta College students clambered into the packed auditorium of the University of Akron on Oct. 14 to hear from Piper Kerman, former prison inmate and writer of the memoir “Orange Is the New Black.” The trip was part of a program sponsored by the Office of Civic Engagement to encourage student dialogue on prison reform.
Kerman looked like her pre-prison self. Mentally, however, her year behind bars changed her forever. Now a public speaker and human rights activist, Kerman spoke with the intent to bring a serious issue to light – the flaws of the American prison system.
According to Kerman, our prisons are packed to the brim. The United States has only 5 percent of the world’s population, but holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoners and a third of the world’s female prisoners.
In fact, since the beginning of the War on Drugs in the 1970’s, the U.S. has seen an 800 percent increase in incarceration of women. Kerman herself spent a year in prison for drug trafficking violations, the result of circumstance that had happened more than 10 years before her sentence. The 70’s also marked the inception of for-profit prisons.
“What we’ve done in the last 30 years is that we’ve put people in prison who never would have been in prison before,” Kerman said.
Kerman’s memoir and speech encouraged senior Jenna Skoglund, a trip participant, to look more closely into the prison system.
“I understand the point of prison, and I do support certain criminals and felons being jailed for a period of time,” Skoglund said. “However, I think unless it’s for life, America needs to do a better job at actually reforming these citizens, because otherwise they’re just going to end up right back in prison.”
Kerman’s time in jail taught her to view her fellow prisoners with empathy. Like most Americans, she realized she had developed a stereotypical image of the type of people who go to prison. It was these same people, however, who befriended her, cared for her, and ultimately “helped [her] survive” jail.
“Our image of prisoners is of uncontrollably violent places filled with uncontrollably violent people,” she said. “The last thing I expected on my first day of prison was kindness at the hands of fellow prisoners.”
Because of these stereotypes, many people become “out of sight, out of mind” after being locked up, Kerman said. Inmates become less human than the rest of society. However, the author stressed that prisoners’ lives –and the issues surrounding them – are still worth our attention.
For example, many incarcerated women are mothers. Kerman said there are 1.3 million children with mothers living under criminal justice supervision. Research shows that these children are more likely to go into foster care than those with fathers who go to prison.
“When I think of stats like these, I think of real people,” Kerman said.
Furthermore, not all prisoners are sentenced equally. Kerman lived with women of color whose crimes were no worse than hers, but had much longer sentences. According to Kerman, African-Americans are four times more likely than Caucasians to be arrested for simple possession of marijuana.
“The criminal justice system is too commonly used as a tool of control over low-income communities of minorities… This is something that should stop,” she said to an applauding crowd.
Cristie Thomas, civic engagement coordinator and creator of the program, hoped Kerman’s speech would cause students to scrutinize the American criminal justice system, along with issues like race, gender, and mental health.
“It’s almost like our prisons are microcosms of our society at large,” she said.
Thomas’ program will continue with a visit to St. Mary’s Correctional Center in St. Mary’s, W. Va in Nov. There, students will hear inmates’ personal stories about life in prison. The Office of Civic Engagement is also encouraging students to coordinate a prison book drive.
“…Not everyone that goes to prison is a bad person, and not everyone deserves to be treated like a horrible criminal while in prison or once they’re out of it,” Skoglund said.
