When Piper Kerman was released from prison in 2005, she was overwhelmed by the interest in her experience from friends, family and acquaintances. “There were the two fantasies I encountered,” the author of the memoir turned Netflix TV series Orange is the New Black told an audience in New York on Thursday.
“People either fantasized prison as an unbelievably uncontrollably violent and depraved place, or as an incredibly rehabilitative place filled with programs that were getting people back on their feet.”
But for Kerman, prison wasn’t either. It was liveable, as portrayed in her book and the TV series, but it wasn’t full of resources.
Kerman appeared on a panel of journalists and activists to discuss the value of making education more accessible to currently and formerly incarcerated women. According to the panel’s host organization, College & Community Fellowship (CCF), 65% of US prisoners without a higher degree are likely to return to prison or jail within three years of release. That likelihood drops to 5.6% for people with bachelor’s degrees, and less than 1% for those with master’s degrees.
Kerman and the panelists agreed that one reason a better education reduces recidivism isn’t the fact that it helps them find a job, but that it makes them self-reflective.
Access to housing, employment, and substance abuse treatment are important, the panelists agreed, but educational resources are a key component of a successful policy. “None of those things got people to be self-reflective and think differently about themselves,” said panel member Vivian Nixon, executive chair of CCF. “In fact, a job that you hate and makes you miserable every day can actually have an adverse effect on your chances of not returning to a normal life rather than staying out of jail.”
Kerman was optimistic, however, about the ability to convince legislators of the clear value of education.
“People do see the connection between schools and prisons in terms of our public investment in institutions,” said Kerman. “An investment in a prison or jail is fundamentally, on a lot of levels, a negative investment. An investment in a school inside of a prison is one of your only prospects of a positive investment in that context. So I am optimistic.”
A roadblock to prioritizing education in the criminal justice system is the overpowering number of prisoners under-treated for mental illnesses. According to a 2006 Justice Department study, more than half of American prison and jail inmates have a mental disorder – women’s prisons and jails struggle with a number closer to 75%.
“When you talk to thoughtful people who work in corrections, they’ll often identify this as the single biggest issue they struggle with,” said Kerman. “My greatest fear is that we will continue to enshrine healthcare for poor people in the criminal justice system. Part of the rationale is the fact that the only people in this country that have a constitutional right to healthcare are prisoners. It creates this strange set of incentives, and flow of [people] from the poorest neighborhoods, who deserve and should receive care in other ways, into the criminal justice system.”
The solution, she suggested, was in making the walls of prisons and jails more transparent, and humanizing the people inside them.
“Most reports talk about the big picture, but never zoom in and focus on the chicken’s eye view. So we say, ‘Oh that’s horrible! These stories are horrible!’ about people who don’t have faces or names – and then we forget. This also allows many people to continue to think, ‘Oh that’s those people,’ as opposed to ‘Oh, that’s us people.’ And the more people recognize that these people are our people, the greater the outrage will be.”
