Interview by Leigh Sales, Digital producer Amy Sherden.
Ten years after deciding to carry a bag of money for a drug cartel, Piper Kerman entered the US prison system.
When she finished university in her early 20s, she got caught up with a woman she felt was incredibly sophisticated and worldly, and whom she eventually discovered was involved in narcotics.
Instead of running off and finding better friends, Kerman followed the older woman all over the world.
When she was asked to carry a bag of drug money, she crossed the imaginary line in the sand that she never thought she would cross.
It was some time later before she was actually charged; Kerman plead guilty and was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
There, surrounded by hundreds of other women, most from far less privileged backgrounds than her own, she understood that her experience was not just about the consequences of her crime, but part of a much bigger issue.
Her memoir, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, topped the New York Times bestseller list and inspired the international hit Netflix series.
Kerman is in Sydney for the All About Women festival at the Opera House. She spoke with 7.30’s Leigh Sales ahead of her appearance.
Misconceptions about prison
“In the United States, one of the most common misconceptions about prison is that every one of the 2.4 million people we have incarcerated is there for a violent crime. There are in fact many, many people that are locked up who are there for low-level drug offences or for property crimes. There are actually many people held in jails in the US who have not been convicted of a crime but they are just too poor to pay their bond while they are waiting for their cases to be adjudicated.”
Humour is essential when incarcerated
“Survival in prison is difficult on so many levels but you have to find some way to hold onto your humanity in institutions that are, in many ways, designed to take your humanity away. And humour is an essential way that that happens. Of course, there are things that happen in prison that you sort of think, ‘If I don’t laugh, I will cry’.
Does it bother you if people associate you with OITNB’s Piper Chapman?
“To me she is very much a creature of Taylor Schilling’s and Jenji Kohan’s writing. The show makes enormous departures from the true story that is told in the book and that is perfectly OK. The themes in the book around race and class, and gender and power, and friendship and empathy — those are the things that are important to me and they are front and centre in every episode and every season of the show and I think that’s why the show has found this incredibly passionate audience.”
How you end up in trouble
“When you venture very, very far out of your comfort zone and get too far away from the person you understand yourself to be, that’s when you can sometimes find yourself in a great deal of trouble. We all find the consequences of our actions, both for better or for worse. We don’t all commit crimes obviously, but we all do things that we wish we could take back. Obviously in my case, the consequences involved prison.
Prisons don’t make people better
“They are unquestionably a form of retribution for harm caused, so you can absolutely check that box. What most prisons and jails do not do is rehabilitate or restore people so that they will come back to the community ready to do things differently. I think that really is one of the tragic misconceptions: that somehow the punishment of prison is the thing that is going to help someone do better.”
Prisons need reform
“We must address those things that are public health problems that are better met with different approaches than confinement in a cage. I promise you that jail and prison do not make mentally ill people or substance addicted people better, and often they make them worse. The more challenging thing is how we can contend with violence in the community in better and more thoughtful ways that do not in fact perpetuate cycles of violence. Anyone who thinks that somebody who does something violent and dominance-related, and who is then put in prison, and thinks that that person is going to learn how to do things differently, they’re fooling themselves.”
This post originally appeared on ABC News.
© 2016 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. Read the ABC Disclaimer here.
