This was hard for Kerman to accept because she knew their crimes were not all that different from hers. She explained that the crime rate is at an all-time low, despite the spike in incarceration numbers, and two-thirds of jailed women commit nonviolent crimes – though gender is only half of the equationĪfter her first night in prison, Piper Kerman said she felt grateful: her 15-month sentence felt minimal compared to the many years some of her fellow inmates faced. Kerman argued that frequently, the solution to crimes committed by mothers could be solved without imprisonment. When mothers are placed in prison, they often lose their children to foster care. The women in prison today would not have been in prison thirty years ago, and this, she says, is an enormous issue for several reasons. “When did the female crime wave break out, why I haven’t I heard about this?” Kerman asks. One slide included nothing but the figure 800 percent the percentage increase in America’s incarceration of women over the last 30 years. The idea of a different color being “the new black” is typical of fashion magazines, connecting the title to women. “This isn’t just about prisoners or jumpsuits, this is about women,” Kerman said of her book title choice. In her speech, Kerman used her personal experience in the criminal justice system to describe its various failures, such as the increased incarceration rate of minorities and the imbalance of power between genders. Despite her success, Kerman still exemplifies the same humility that helped her survive a year in prison. The best-selling memoir chronicles her 13 months spent in the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, a women’s prison in Connecticut, for transporting narcotics and laundering money. Such is the way of Piper Kerman, author of the memoir “Orange is the New Black,” the basis for the same-titled hit Netflix series. “And cut the line?” she asked suspiciously. She was escorted to an empty table in the front of the room, table #1, by a faculty member who promised her a plate of food right away. Guests waited last Wednesday in a buffet line just outside the Massachusetts Room at the University of Massachusetts Amherst when the woman of the hour walked in.
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