Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, this is Annie, and you're listening to stuff I've
never told you so. I was listening to MPR the
other day yep, during the Fall fund drive. And they
(00:27):
reported on an investigation they had just completed with Northwestern
University's Meddill School of Journalism around female prisons and in particular,
discipline and female prisons. They visited five prisons and collected
data from fifteen states, and their report found female prisoners
are disciplined at a higher rate than male prisoners, two
(00:50):
to three times higher, and and for more minor things.
In California, for instance, female prisoners are twice as likely
to be written up for or disrespect than men. In Vermont,
women are three times it's likely to be disciplined for
making derogatory comments. In Rhode Island and Iowa, women are
three times more likely to get in trouble for disobedience
(01:13):
and disruptive behavior. And this matters for a couple of reasons. One,
women are more likely to end up in solitary confinement
as a result of these minor infractions as compared to men.
Inmates could lose good conduct credits, which could lead to
them spending more time in prison. Female prisoners could lose
privileges like being able to buy food or hygiene products
(01:34):
at the commissary, or visitation or phone privileges. Over half
of the female prison population are mothers to children under eighteen,
so this means they're completely cut off from their kids.
At one facility, suicide rates for the female prisoners climbed
from one to ten a month, and professionals looking into
it think it has to do with a lot of
things that this report found that we're talking about. The
(01:57):
reporters make the point that jails were designed for controlling men,
and particularly aggressive men, and since the population of female
prisoners has risen over seven hundred and fifty since night,
this problem is only worsened. Women are more likely to
be in prison for less violent crimes as compared to men,
like drug our property crimes. They're more likely to struggle
(02:20):
with substance abuse our mental illnesses than male prisoners. On
top of that, up to female prisoners have been physically
and or sexually abused. That's going to influence how they
react and behave in these situations. Female prisoners are often
more communicative to and the prison system was not set
(02:40):
up for that, and prison guards were not trained for that.
This goes back a long way to In eighteen forty five,
state auditors in Illinois wrote, one female prisoner is of
more trouble than twenty mailes. Some potential solutions the report
offered call for training staff specificly to work with female prisoners,
(03:01):
something called gender responsive training. But it takes a while,
and it's expensive, and some staff of the largely male
workforce derogatorily call it hug a thug. Still, it's good
that we're having these conversations, and today we wanted to
rerun a classic episode about a show you might have
(03:23):
heard of on Netflix that helped bring some of these
issues women face in prison to light. Orange Is the
New Black. I will say that every time I've watched
Orange Is a New Black, when I wanted to bene it,
I've been in the middle of some weird life situation
where I I don't know, I'm like at a studio
alone at night, trying to complete a project, and just
(03:43):
watching Range a New Black on a very small screen,
so as a special weird place in my heart. But
this episode is a is a good look about the
US prison system, what it gets right and when it
gets wrong, when it pertains to women. How accurate is
the show? So we hope you enjoy. Welcome to stuff
(04:06):
Mom never told you from how Stuff works not color. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen,
and you guys might have taken note of the fact
that Kristen and I have been, you know, encouraging you
to go watch Orange Is the New Black on Netflix.
It is a really incredible, compelling show full of really
(04:30):
really colorful characters who have pretty incredible and again compelling backstories.
And when we put out the call to get episodes suggestions,
one of the top requested episodes was to take a
real look at real women in prison. Yeah, so here
(04:53):
you go, contest winner, Orange is the New Black versus
real life women's risens. And we're gonna have to give
just summaries of all of these different facets because there
are so many different angles to what life is really
(05:13):
like in women's prisons and who are those women, those
very real women who are incarcerated. Um, but we're going
to do the best we can to give you a
comprehensive snapshot of what life is like in there, and
just for a snapshot as well of Orange as the
New Black. It was created by Genji Cohen, who also
(05:35):
created the show Weeds, which I'm sure is a favorite
among some listeners as well. And it's based on a
memoir by the same name by a woman named Piper Kerman,
who is Piper Chapman in the show. She's the main character. Yeah,
and now Piper Kerman serves as a communications consultant for
(05:55):
a firm in New York, and she also volunteers for
the Women's Prison Association and has since poined their board. Yeah,
it's pretty cool how she has parlayed her experience the
year that she spent in prison, not just to write
a best selling memoir and make some cash off of
turning it into a show, but to really use her platform,
(06:17):
her privilege platform, in a lot of ways to highlight
the just horrific conditions that women are living in in
prison and also the injustice, the rampant injustice that is
our criminal justice system that is keeping not only women
(06:39):
in prison, but also getting them, keeping them in this
cycle of incarceration. So let's first talk about the show.
Let's talk about some things. Oh, and I guess we
should say spoiler alerts ahead. If you have not seen
Orange as the New Black. You might want to watch
it before you listen to this podcast because we're gonna
(07:01):
share some things, not too many crazy spoilers, but but
still we're gonna fill you in on the show. Yeah. Um, well,
so let's start by talking about what kind of things
the show got right, because I know, you know, as
I'm watching it, I'm like, God, some of these things
seem terrible. Some of them seem not so bad. For instance,
(07:22):
a lot of the women have great camaraderie. Like, how
accurate is this stuff? And so this is coming from
um a piece that Jeff Smith wrote. He's a former
Missouri state senator who resigned his seat after pleading guilty
to two counts of obstruction of justice, and he spent
a year in federal prison. And we're also getting some
of this information from a story that appeared on the
(07:44):
cut from New York Magazine. They sat down with five
formally incarcerated women and talked about Orange is the New
Black and how accurate these portrayals of women and prisoners are. Yeah,
and so some of the general things that it gets
right is that small thing ings have huge consequences. For instance,
Smith talks about how one of his main strategies to
(08:06):
stay safe, as he writes, because he weighs only a
hundred and seventeen pounds, he's a pretty small guy, was
to quietly give stolen tomatoes and onions to certain powerful inmates,
which effectively helped me build critical alliances. Because what what
might seem like minor infractions or social awkwardness kinds of
(08:29):
things really do have outsized consequences. For instance, in the show,
when you have read essentially starving Piper, he he wasn't
at all surprised by that. He was like, something like
that could absolutely happen. And as a side note with
the whole starvation thing, courts have upheld prisons serving neutral
(08:52):
OAF as punishment and neutral OAF for people who are
not acquainted with it. It's the stuff that Piper was
served when she went into the special housing unit. The shoe,
which is essentially solitary confinement and neutral loaf is what
it sounds like. It's a loaf of stuff that doesn't
taste very good but contains all of the nutrients necessary
(09:16):
to keep you alive. So it's not quite starving someone
to death. Not yeah, not quite. Um. Another thing that
is accurate is just the fact of having to to
kind of make do with what you have, creating something
out of very little. For instance, the cool a lip
(09:37):
gloss in the show, I think they made signs at
one point and they didn't have paint, so I think
they used kool aid for that too. But also using
in the show, they've used Maxi pads as shoes or
as masks for when everybody got sick. Yeah. And then
one big question that a lot of people had was
what about the sexual tension, because the way that I
(10:00):
ascribed Orange is the New Black in my notes is
that it kind of makes it look like women's prison
is a hyper sexual lesbian summer camp with really means
psychopathic counselors um. And the ex prisoners said, yeah, you know,
of course people have urges. But the women also pointed
(10:21):
out that the rampant sexy times that you see on
Orange Is the New Black are overblown a bit. It's
not as common for women to be constantly having sex
with other women in prison or jail, right, And they
did get it right. Also that the prison administrators really
do not care about the women as people, and that
(10:45):
discipline can be pretty arbitrary. Also that visitation can be
depressing when when relatives come to visit you in prison. Yeah.
On the one hand, you have Pipers family and friends
coming and it's and it's usually pretty awful because they
don't want to It's like they're in denial that she's
(11:06):
actually in prison, or they're being too gawky about it.
It's like one or the other. And then you have
instances in the show like when um, Diana's mom is
sitting there and she's so angry and just trying to
get information from her boyfriend as to whether or not
he's been sleeping around and just all of the you know,
(11:26):
those those two worlds colliding. Um, so understandably visitation, when
the outside meets the inside, it can certainly breed some discontent. Yeah,
and then um, the whole issue. There was one episode
of Orange is the New Black where um, one woman
Big Boo, is upset that her kind of ex girlfriend
(11:48):
is is leaving. And so there's this whole issue of
antagonizing people before they are set to be released in
order to try to get them stuck in jail for longer. Yeah,
And in that case, that's someone wanting to keep someone
that they love from leaving. But a lot of times.
That's what happens with enemies. You've got to watch out
(12:09):
if you're about to leave, and if you've made an enemy, uh,
there's a good chance that someone might try to sabotage
your release. And speaking of release, and this is something
we'll talk about in more detail, recidivism happens a lot
when spoiler, this is a big spoiler when we see
Tasty come back after she's released and she talks about
(12:31):
how it was basically impossible for her to stay out
of prison. She couldn't do it because she had absolutely
no resources. And that is very true to life, because
ex prisoners are given little to no resources to get
back on their feet, especially if they're felons. Well, so,
(12:52):
what does the show get wrong? What do they gloss
over or not portray accurately. One of those things is
the consequences for or talking too much, snitching and crossing
racial lines are actually much harsher than portrayed in the show. Yeah,
for instance, when everybody listens to Piper's boyfriend on the
(13:13):
This American Life type show talking about what she tells
him about her experience in prison and all of the
different people who she's essentially snitching on and everyone's hearing this.
The retribution for that probably would have been much harsher
in a real women's prison. And even though with race,
(13:36):
even though it's very segregated in the show, there's still
a lot more mixing and crossing of those racial lines
than there probably would be. Yeah, and the whole nudity issue,
I mean, you know, the show opens with shower scenes. Um,
the in actuality, there's a lot less nudity in the
showers because you have to just kind of watch your
(13:56):
back you might get assaulted. Yeah, and that's more true
probably in male prisons. That was something that Jeff Smith
pointed out in terms of listen, you're really gonna want
to be naked for as short of a time as possible. Um. So, essentially,
what the show gets wrong is that the worse is
so much worse. The bad stuff is so bad, and so,
(14:22):
you know, I think that if they were to portray
it as it actually is, the show would almost be unwatchable.
But on the bright side, one thing that I found
that is true in prison becoming more true in prison
is that yoga is practiced in a growing number of prisons. Yeah,
because it is a great way to be active and
(14:45):
also to relax, and it's cheap. A lot of times
the people who come into the prisons to teach the
yoga classes are volunteers. Yeah, The New York Times did
a whole piece on this and talked about how even
in men's prisons, some of the the guys were really
hesitant to go and do something they might have seen
as not being really tough, but that anecdotally a lot
(15:07):
of them report really positive benefits from a regular yoga practice.
So there are yoga jaans in prison. But then on
a download again, because really from here on it kind
(15:29):
of all the information that we're going to offer does
get a bit dismal. Um, we should talk about trans
people in prison, because we have Sophia Bursett, who has
played so wonderfully by Laverne Cox, who portrays male to
female transgender person who had undergone gender reassignment surgery and
(15:50):
later is denied hormone treatment and is having to deal
with the physical and emotional repercussions from that. And the
situation for trans people who are incarcerated is really dismal, right,
And I think it's reflected pretty well in that issue
that you just mentioned of having her hormone therapy denied.
(16:12):
In reality, seventeen of trans people in prison are denied
hormone treatment and often end up in prison according to
their birth sex, which can lead to a huge amount
of severe harassment. Yeah, especially from male to female pre
gender reassignment surgery prisoners who might be put in a
men's prison, that risk of harassment definitely goes up. Um
(16:36):
and just the risk for going to jail, for being arrested,
going to jail, being imprisoned is higher for trans people
compared to the rest of the population. A report from
the National Center for Transgender Equality found that sixteen percent
of trans people surveyed had spent at least some jail
time or prison time because of things lie unemployment, because
(17:01):
the unemployment rate is twice that of the general population,
which is often related to harassment, which is related to
being transgender, and so because of that high rate of unemployment,
they might turn to things like sex work, drug trades,
and also be homeless. Right and sixteen Also, another sixteen
(17:21):
six of the respondents who had been in prison or
jail reported being physically assaulted. Fifteen percent of responds who
had been in jail reported they had been sexually assaulted.
So in a way, the orange is the new black
character Sophia has. I mean, aside from the hormone treatment issue,
that portrays the situation for a trans prisoner and almost
(17:43):
the best possible scenario, right. I mean, she is still like,
you know, verbally attacked, and she still deals with a
whole lot of people, you know, just saying terrible things
to her. But she is not in a men's prison,
right And the and side note, her hair salon probably
wouldn't exist in a real woman's love her hair and
(18:06):
the show, Like I swear, I just watched an episode
last night and she's wearing this like headband and her
hair is all braided, and I just I was like, God,
I wish I could do that to my hair, but
it's not thick enough anyway, total tangent. But another nightmare
situation that we've already mentioned is the special housing unit
the Shoe, the solitary confinement where Piper goes. When she
(18:27):
was dancing a little provocatively and Sam Healy got a
little upset with her. This is where inmates are separated
from the rest of the population and they have very
limited activity. Yeah, and about five point seven percent of
federal prisoners. Around ten thousand people are in the shoe
at any given moment, and with the solitary conditions, some
(18:51):
people have argued that the shoe constitutes a specific form
of torture. Yeah, I mean, I I can't imagine. I mean,
and in the show, Piper is only in there for
about forty eight hours, but I mean, she was already
you know, her character is already losing it. I can't,
I can't imagine. Well, and then that relates back to
the whole issue of arbitrary discipline, where you don't know
(19:14):
exactly what you have to do to stay out of
the shoe. If you simply cross someone in a way
that they don't like, then you might be thrown in there.
And I mean, and who's to say how long? You know,
how long that you'll be in there? Right? Um, So
let's take a deeper look away from Orange is a
New Black, the show and into women's prisons. And I
(19:38):
cannot recommend the article that we found over at Bitch
Magazine that did just this. It didn't end depth look
at how Orange is a New Black compares to real life.
And uh, this is a major source for a lot
of these statistics that we're gonna be tossing out so
for an idea of just how bad the situation is
(20:00):
in terms of imprisonment in the United States, the US
is home to five percent of the world's population and
twenty five percent of the world's prison inmates, and women
are this country's fastest growing prison population. And according to
the Sentencing Project, the number of women incarcerated in the
(20:20):
US increased by six hundred and forty six percent between
nineteen eight that's from fifteen thousand, one eighteen to one
hundred and twelve thousand seven. Yeah, and just to get
even more specific, Oklahoma incarceraates more women per capita than
(20:42):
any other state um. And if we break it down racially,
as of Black women have been incarcerated at nearly three
times the rate of white women, and Hispanic women were
incarcerated at one point six times the rate of white women.
And even though those are huge disparities, it's actually narrowed
(21:05):
as black women were incarcerated at six times the rate
as white women in two thousand UM And and just
for comparison, though black men are imprisoned at about twenty
two times the rate that black women are white men,
are incarcerated at ten times the rate of white women
and Latino men at sixteen times the rate. So even
(21:28):
though the imprisonment of women has skyrocketed in the last
twenty years, that's only a small portion of the overall
prison population, which is overwhelmingly male and overwhelmingly black and Latino.
And as we'll get into a little bit deeper in
just a second, I mean, one of the consequences of,
(21:51):
you know, having so many people in prison at any
given time is just the economic hardships that people face,
because once you've been to prison, it's so hard to
claw your way back up. And uh, Dorothy Roberts, who's
a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, rights in the
u c l A Law review that mass imprisonment of
(22:11):
blacks and Latinos allows the state to exert direct control
over poorly educated, unskilled, and jobless people who have no
place in the market economy because of racism. It also
preserves a racial cast system that civil rights reforms were
supposed to abolish. And one of the big issues specifically
related to the female prison population and something that Piper Kerman,
(22:36):
who is the real life Piper Chapman talks about a
lot is how a third of prisoners are in for
non violent drug offenses. In other words, these women aren't
going out killing, assaulting, robbing. A lot of times it is,
as it's portrayed in the show of women being caught
(22:57):
in the wrong place making poor decision ends, mind you,
but being in the wrong place at the wrong time
as part of drug deals that might be going on,
and the punishment for it in a lot of ways
is so much greater than the crime because once you
are in prison, even if you get out, it's so
(23:20):
hard to stay out. But before we talk about life
on the outside, we've got to talk about two big
issues facing women on the inside that Orange is the
New Black doesn't focus in on too much, the first
of which is sexual assault. Right sexual abuse by guards
is much more likely to happen in women's prisons, and
(23:42):
one prison that is focused on a lot is the
Denver Women's Correctional Facility, which has the highest sexual assault
rate in the nation, with ten point seven percent of
inmates claiming sexual misconduct. And it's should be noted that
the national average is two point four sent and that's
at least of women who are even reporting this because
(24:03):
there are plenty of offenders who are scared to report
sexual assault or rape for fear of retribution. And to
give you an idea of how sexual abuse by guards
compares to the women's prison population versus men's prisons, more
than three fourths of all reported staff sexual misconduct involves
(24:25):
women victimized by male correctional officers. And we see a
little bit of that portrayal in Orange is the New Black,
but it it pales in comparison to what these statistics indicate.
And even before these women end up in prison, a
(24:46):
lot of times they have already survived some kind of
sexual abuse. Forty percent of women in prison are survivors
of physical and sexual abuse, right, And when you think
about what that does to people, I mean a lot
of times that does put you on a path where
you are more susceptible to you know, a lifestyle that
involves drugs or or puts you in you know, bad
(25:07):
life situations. And so you know, if you end up
in prison and abuse is what you've known, and you
just continue to be physically or sexually abused, it can
be hard to get past that. Yeah, And and and
thinking about the attendant mental health issues that are coming
into prison along with these women who have already encountered
(25:28):
so much hardship. Women in state prison in two thousand
four had a mental health problem. But are those kinds
of things being addressed while they're in jail while they're
in prison? Probably not, because the system is completely overworked
and totally flawed, and there are not dedicated resources to
(25:50):
actually making sure that these women are in good and
healthy shape inside and out to be prepared to live
a life away from crime, right And they honestly can't
even get away from the prison culture when they are
giving birth. One and thirty three women in federal prisons
(26:11):
are pregnant, and shackling these women when they give birth
is still legal in thirty two states. And I mean
this is a practice that the American Medical Association calls
medically hazardous and barbaric. Yeah, I was astounded to learn
that Illinois became the first state to pass a law
banning shackling during childbirth in nine nine. Only then did
(26:35):
we start saying, huh, there seems to be something a
little bit wrong with a woman who is giving birth
being handcuffed, her hands handcuffed to the bed frame, and
her feet being handcuffed to the bedframe, and as soon
as that baby is delivered, it is probably taken away
from her. There's one prisoner who recounted in an ABC
News story about this how she gave birth with her hand,
(27:00):
hands and feet handcuffed and wasn't able to even contact
her baby until seventy days later. And she didn't her
husband was not allowed in the hospital room. It was
just a guard there with her. And even though Illinois,
for instance, has outlawed shackling, it doesn't mean that it's stopped.
Because there was recently a four point one million dollars
(27:21):
settlement for eighty Chicago inmates who were shackled between two
thousand seven and two thousand ten. It's still happening now.
A two thousand seven anti shackling policy was enacted in
the Federal Bureau of Prisons, but not it should be
noted on a statewide level. And even if you aren't
pregnant in prison, an overwhelming majority of the female prison
(27:46):
population are also mothers. Around two thirds of women are
A hundred and twenty thousand women in prison have children.
And and what effects does this have on the children?
Not a one? Not surprisingly no, And you know the
foster care system exploded in a parallel fashion to the
(28:07):
explosion of the prison population. So the fact that, I
mean it's not just women, you know, it's not just mothers,
it's any Any child whose parent or parents have been
in prison are more likely to suffer negative effects. But yeah,
the the foster more more kids are going into foster
care as more parents are going in to prison. And
so according to Pew Charitable Trust report, one in every
(28:31):
twenty eight children in the United States has a parent
in jail or prison. But when you crystallize that down
along racial lines, for African American children, that number is
one in nine and for Hispanic children that's one in
twenty eight, whereas one in fifty seven White children have
a parent in jail or prism. And we should also
(28:51):
note that on a population wide basis, there are more
women in prison with kids than men in prison with kids,
and a lot of times, because women end up being
the primary caregiver, having that mom in prison does have
such a debilitating effect a lot of times for these kids.
(29:14):
Not to say that if you know a mom is
involved in drug abuse or is living in an unsafe environment,
that that that's a good thing. For the kid. But
it's but it's like it's such it's yet another argument
for rehabilitating rather than just incarcerating. Right. Well, along these
(29:35):
same lines, one horrifying thing that came to light several
months ago was the issue of sterilization of women who
give birth while they're in prison. Um this is coming
from the Center for Investigative Reporting. California prisons have sterilized
nearly two fifty women over the past few decades, and
(29:55):
nearly a hundred and fifty of those were between two
thousand and six and twenty in and they talked to O. B. G.
Y N. James Heinrich, who's in this California prison, and
his defense is kind of chilling. He says that spending
money to sterilize these women is better than spending money
on welfare for these unwanted children as they procreate more. Yeah,
(30:20):
and and you know, and so the the issue behind this,
the controversy, it's it's not like these women are saying, hey,
would you mind a lot of times this is its coercion,
it's forced, it's you know. This one woman's account was that,
you know, as she was getting closer and closer to
her due date, this Heinrich. This Dr Heinrich was like,
you know, you should really think about it. Are you
gonna do it? You're gonna do it. We're gonna do it, right,
(30:42):
And so, you know, the day came and he you know,
just went ahead and did it. That's horrifying because it's
so indicative of how a lot of times people men, women,
kids alike who end up in the criminal justice system
for whatever reason, ceased to be a person, and they
just become a statistic, they become a problem, you know.
(31:05):
And yeah, it is expensive to pay for people to
be in jail. It's about sixty dollars a year to
pay for of tax payer money to pay for one
woman who's in prison. And that's insane. But that's not
the problem of you know, it's it's a it's a
system wide problem. I feel like that's a top down issue. Sterilization.
(31:26):
Treating those women like animals in a lot of ways
is certainly not going to stop that cycle, right, And
it's it's just it was so horrifying, partially because you know,
this country does have a history of doing that, but
doing it particularly to people of color, and so to
hear the story that California prisons have so recently still
(31:49):
been forcing women or coercing women into it. It's that
is eye opening, and that doesn't change the fact that
there are still what two thirds of women in prison
who go into prison already with kids, and those kids
are at heightened risk first getting in trouble at school, depression,
and then ending up in jail. So it really is cyclical,
(32:12):
which leads us to the problem with recidivism of leaving
and getting right back, because roughly four and ten adult
American offenders will return to prison within three years of
their release, according to a two thousand eleven report from
the Pew Charitable Trusts. Right, and so this is going
(32:33):
back to the tasty character on Orange is the New
Black when she does talk about how much she had
to deal with and what landed her back in prison,
because prisoners simply don't just walk out. Um, you have
all sorts of parole and probation fees, jail book in fees,
jail per dams for pre trialed attention, presentenced report fees,
(32:55):
just so much, so many little rules and regulations and
so much bign that you have to deal with once
you get released from jail. And if for instance, you
have a felony drug conviction, you're ineligible for housing assistance.
And I think that the housing issue is one thing
that landed Tasty back in jail. And the show she
had nowhere to go, she had nowhere to sleep. What
(33:17):
are you going to do? Um? And only about ten
percent of inmates attend educational, vocational or treatment programs on
a given day, not necessarily because they don't want to,
but because those rehabilitational programs are often not offered, probably
because there's not money for it, there aren't resources, and
(33:40):
the way that we often dehumanize the people who need
those kinds of resources. And it's unfortunate because research from
Pew and other sources have shown the benefits monetary and
otherwise that are reaped when you install occasional vocational, et
(34:01):
cetera kinds of training programs for prisoners. Right because Kerman
real life Piper talked about how you know, she did
attend some of those classes even though she herself had
a man and a job waiting for her when she
got out of prison. You know, she she talked about
going to some of those quote unquote classes and how
she went to a housing class. You know, where people
(34:21):
have questions about like how do I get an apartment,
how do I pay rent? Like how do I do
this and that? But they were teaching them about home
repair and applying siting to the side of your house,
or you know, just really random things like that where
it's like, well, this isn't helping anyone, it's not real life,
you know, reality based teaching. Yeah, and in prison vocation programs,
(34:43):
for instance, like preparing people to get jobs, which is
really really hard if you are a felon, especially, those
kinds of programs produce net benefits of over thirteen dollars
per offender or over twelve of dollars for every dollar invested,
and will net a drop in recidivism. So that's just
(35:08):
one example of how the system could not only help
these people, but also help stop the cycle that has
led to this overwhelming like metasticizing prison population where prisons
are in jails are now being outsourced to private companies,
for profit companies. We don't have room for our prison
(35:31):
population in the United States. Isn't that crazy to think
about that we arrest so many people and have no
place to put them. Well, I mean, you know, I'm
saying this from a privileged position obviously, but it doesn't
it seem like it's common sense. Two and I realized
this is moving a mountain. It doesn't seem like it's
(35:51):
common sense to put more effort and money into community
programs thanks to actually help people, whether you're someone who
has been in jail or or not, but to help
strengthen communities and educate people so that they don't cycle back. Yeah,
I mean, it's it's it's such a comprehensive problem that
(36:13):
you could talk about from the way that prisons are
set up all the way to how our laws are established.
And I mean there have been, um, there has been
recent news about eliminating UH mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses,
which would cut down a lot on all of these
(36:34):
massive numbers of drug offenders who are currently behind bars. Um.
And then you take it back even further to education,
keeping kids in school, keeping families intact, etcetera. You know, Yeah,
it's the problem of our exploding prisons is bigger than
(36:55):
those prisons for sure, exactly. Um. And to me, the
if there is good news, UM, it's that there are
people like Piper Kerman who are really trying to shine
a light on these issues. I think it's a good
thing that, even though it might not be the most
(37:15):
realistic portrayal of women's prison, I think that it's great
that Gingi Cohen made Orange is the New Black, and
I'm glad that it has hit such a cultural nerve
and that people are asking these questions of, oh, well,
what's what's it like in real life? And I think
the reason why we're so curious to know how it
applies to real life because it highlights these women as
(37:38):
real people and not just oh oh, they're just prisoners,
are just offenders, they're just criminals. Keep them away from me. Well.
There's a point in one of the episodes where Red
is talking to Natasha Leon's character, um, and you know,
Natasha Leone is saying something and Red is like, well,
you know, what are the what are the town expeirs care?
(38:00):
They don't care. You know, we're eating this junk because
they're just trying to watch what the bottom line is.
You know, we're the bad guys. And I think I
think there is that attitude of like, well, I don't
care about what anything is like in prison for prisoners
because they're prisoners. They're bad guys and it's like, well,
but you have to look at the cultural effect, the
societal effect that all of this is having exactly. Um.
(38:23):
And can I close off with a really long quote
from Piper Kerman please please do who after after learning
more about her and what she does and how she
uses her now very elevated platform to advocate for those
women that she was imprisoned with and who are in
prison right now, I have so much respect for her. Um.
(38:45):
And she was talking to the Washington Post about the
current state of the women's prison population, and she says,
I think that women in prison are really emblematic of typical,
low level, non violent offenders. That is a giant growth
air in terms of our prison system over the last
thirty years. We're putting people in prison who we never
would have put in prison before. And there's a staggering
(39:07):
social cost when we talk about the families, but also
it costs about sixty dollars a year and that adds
up really quickly. And we're talking about someone who was
not this prominent threat to safety. It's just a policy
and that's it. And families and communities are being destroyed
because of it. Yeah, So what can people do if
they want to help out if they are my if
(39:29):
they are as concerned about what life is really like
in women's prisons and in jails and prisons in general,
what what can people do to help out? Well, there
is the Women's Prison Association, which is what Piper Kerman
is affiliated with. That's at w p A online dot org.
And then there is this Sentencing Project which we referenced earlier,
(39:52):
and that is at Sentencing Project dot org. So now
I want to hear from you. Mom Stuff at Discovery
dot com is where you can send your emails thoughts
on Orange as a new Black women's prison, the criminal
justice system. I know we threw a lot of information
at you for this one, but it's a really big
one to tackle, So we want to hear all of
(40:15):
your thoughts mom stuff at Discovery dot com. You can
also hit us up on Facebook or tweet us at
mom Stuff podcast. And we've got a couple of letters
to share right after. And now back to our letters. Well,
(40:38):
since we're about to wrap up our special series on
lean in women work in the Will to Lead by
Cheryl Sandberg, who want to share a couple of letters
from our episode on the workplace fear factor This is
a letter from Cynthia. She says, I'm a chemistry professor
at a large public university. I've always felt like it
(40:58):
was a complete act accident that I was accepted to
a top graduate program. I would get so worried about
it that I wouldn't participate in the extremely important study
groups my first year, instead choosing to cry over my
intelligible books alone. Later, I found that many of my classmates,
male and female, felt the same. However, we women would
over prepare and obsessed to the point that it was
(41:19):
detrimental to our health. My graduate adviser, another woman who
admits to strong impostor syndrome, taught me to fake it
until I make it. Well, I've now made it, and
every day I feel more and more like I deserve it.
I've worked my butt off, darn it, and I'm a
great chemist because of it. She says, keep up your
good work. I love your podcast, so thank you, Cynthia,
(41:39):
and keep up your chemistry. She's very cool. Well, I've
got one here from Becca, subject line impostor in the Laboratory.
She writes, I'm a recent college graduate who was fortunate
enough to land a fantastic job in a research lab
straight out of school. I don't admit this to anyone,
but I really only got the job through personal connections.
It's true that this isn't really unusual, but knowing that
(42:02):
I didn't earn the job through merit alone has made
me feel like a total impostor. I am surrounded by
intelligent individuals, and I often doubt my ability to work
alongside them. I'm three months into this job, and I
have to say that this impostor syndrome has been strangely
motivational for me. My first month here was shaky, and
I felt really undeserving of this position. However, I harnessed
(42:24):
that uneasiness and I have been working really hard to
prove that I belong here. Apparently my hard work is
paying off. Last week, my supervisor told me she was
impressed with my work. Thanks for the great podcast. You
two have helped me through hours of culturing cells, extracting DNA,
and countless other tests that sound more exciting than they
really are. So keep on rocking at Becca and everybody
(42:48):
else who's listening. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
where you can send your letters. You can tweet us
at mom Stuff Podcast. Find us on Facebook and follow
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That's right, We're on Instagram at stuff Mom Never told You.
(43:08):
And finally, don't forget to tune in this Friday to
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Lean In, and don't forget to tune in over on
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(43:33):
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