3 lessons on criminal-justice reform from the author of ‘Orange is the New Black’

Piper Kerman draws on personal experience to show how public safety hinges on criminal-justice reform.

Piper Kerman, author of “Orange is the New Black,” the 2010 New York Times bestselling memoir upon which the popular Netflix series of the same name is based, spoke in Chicago on June 16 about the pressing need for criminal-justice reform. She was hosted by the John Howard Association, a nonpartisan prison-reform group based in Chicago.

Kerman’s memoir details mistakes she made when she was younger, including being pressured into carrying drug money for her former partner, and how she ended up in a federal correctional center in Danbury, Connecticut, for 13 months starting in 2004. During this time, she gained an up-close experience of how the criminal-justice system works, and who it impacts the most.

Public safety depends on criminal-justice reform that keeps communities safe, saves taxpayer dollars and lowers crime. As Illinois moves toward reform, Kerman offered three key realities:

1. Women are a fast-growing segment of the prison population. There are about 200,000 women serving time in prison today – an increase of over 750 percent in the last three decades, according to the Women’s Prison Association. Research from the International Centre for Prison Studies shows nearly a third of the world’s female prisoners are in the U.S. And while most offenders are men, the female prison population has unique challenges. Kerman also notes that around 80 percent of female prisoners have children.

Female offenders are also much more likely than men to be incarcerated for nonviolent offenses, as the overwhelming majority of violent crimes are committed by men. This means women tend to be strong candidates for alternatives to prison, from parole to drug- and mental-health courts, and other programming options. When there’s a low risk of an offender harming the public and a family would be torn apart through incarceration, policymakers should make keeping people out of prison a priority.

2. Criminal records impact more people than you think. Offenders don’t stay in prison forever. In the U.S., nearly 700,000 people leave prison and return to their communities each year. There were as many as 13.9 million ex-felons in the U.S. in 2008, and a 2011 study from the National Employment Law Project estimated 65 million Americans have some form of a criminal record.

In short, the criminal-justice system has a large, direct impact on at least one-fifth of the country – to say nothing of how it has indirectly changed the lives of the friends and family members of offenders. Everyone cares about making sure communities are safe. But it’s important to also consider how people with records struggle with finding employment – because of the stigma of a criminal record, or because occupational-licensing laws lock them out of labor markets.

3. Support systems matter. When Kerman was released from prison in 2005, she had lined up a marketing position in a tech company started by a friend. She began her new job just one week after leaving prison. Of course, the overwhelming majority of people leaving prison are not so fortunate. Many of the other women she spent time with, who lacked her educational background and social connections, would end up homeless, in shelters or back in prison. One of the best predictors for whether someone eventually returns to prison is if they are able to find a job.

So while criminal-justice reform involves policy changes, civil society has a hugely important role to play, too. A 2008 study from the Urban Institute showed that most of the ex-offenders who successfully found work were able to get their jobs through family and friends. If these networks don’t exist, nonprofit and charitable groups, such as the Safer Foundation, or religious groups, such as Prison Fellowship Ministries, provide critical services that help ex-offenders get their lives back on track.