USA-CONGRESS/PRISONS "Orange is the New Black" author testifies before Washington lawmakers

Record ID: 144488

  • Title: USA-CONGRESS/PRISONS "Orange is the New Black" author testifies before Washington lawmakers
  • Date: 4th August 2015
  • Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (AUGUST 4, 2015)(UNRESTRICTED POOL) WIDE OF SENATE PANEL WIDE OF WITNESS PANEL
  • Embargoed: 19th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA3230ID7L276US49995BJ43HNK
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Author of the Book 'Orange Is the New Black' testified before Congress on Tuesday (August 4) to highlight what she called disparities in the criminal justice system in the United States.
    Piper Kerman, testifying before the Senate Homeland Safety and Governmental Affairs Committee, told lawmakers her sentence for a 10-year-old drug-trafficking conviction did little to prevent future crimes.
    "It's hard to believe, however, that there was a lot of social benefit to the community drawn from my incarceration, it prevented no new crimes," Kerman said.
    Kerman, whose book about her year in a Connecticut federal prison for drug a drug trafficking conviction, has been vocal about the mistreatment of women in federal prisons and the disparity in sentences for poorer people and minorities.
    "The only conclusion I could draw was they were treated much more harshly by the American criminal justice system than I had been treated because of socio-economic reasons, differences in class and in some cases because of the color of their skin," Kerwin testified.
    "One of the things that was so striking to me, the very first day that I spent in prison, was that so many of the women that I was incarcerated with and I would spend a great deal of time with were serving much harsher sentences than I was and as the days and the weeks and the months went on and I came to know those other women really well, it was impossible for me to believe that their times were so much more serious than mine."
    Kerwan was sentenced 10 years after smuggling drug money from Chicago to Brussels. Her book inspired the popular Netflix series "Orange is the New Black."
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