‘Orange is the New Black’ author testifies on prison reform

Piper Kerman, whose memoir inspired the Netflix hit “Orange is the New Black,” spoke before Congress on Tuesday about her time in a women’s prison, urging lawmakers to improve conditions for female inmates.

“Our experiences are essential to understanding the reforms needed in our criminal justice system so that it provides for public safety in a way that is legal, and humane, and sensible, and that’s why I’m here today,” she told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

{mosads}Kerman was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to money laundering and drug trafficking. She served 13 months of a 15-month sentence as an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Conn.

Kerman said any prison reforms must take into account the specific challenges faced by female prisoners, including high rates of drug addiction, mental health issues and physical and sexual abuse.

Since women in prison are often single mothers of young children, Kerman also emphasized the importance of placing women in prisons near their homes.

“I knew women who were trying to raise their children during brief reunions in the visitor’s room while fending off sexual harassment, struggling with drug addiction and trying to get a high school education so that when they got out they stood some chance of surviving despite their felony conviction,” she said.

Speaking to The Hill, Kerman said it was crucial for lawmakers to hear from people who had been incarcerated to truly understand the prison experience.

“It’s important to hear from people who have that first person experience of not having run a prison but having been incarcerated, because absent that perspective we don’t really understand prison and hails completely,” Kerman told The Hill.

“If we only hear from jailers, it’s only a portion of the story.”

Lawmakers praised Kerman for using her fame to bring attention to the issue at the hearing.

“I think that with your unintended celebrity, you have done an excellent job of raising this issue,” Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told Kerman.

During her testimony, Kerman quoted Thomas Mott Osborne, an American prison reformer, who asked if prisons should be “scrap heaps or human repair shops.”

“I strongly hope that they are always human repair shops,” said Johnson.

Kerman told The Hill that there was still much to be done at the federal level on prison reform.

“It’s encouraging to see Congress recognize that there are a lot of different parts to the congressional machine that need to focus on these questions in the criminal justice system, its not simply a question for the Senate Judiciary committees,” Kerman said.

“The states have led on reform, and the federal government is in catch up mode.”