Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison

Kerman explains how she looks for small human pleasures, like listening to Pop’s stories and eating homemade food made by other inmates, to survive the long months in prison. In doing so, Kerman works to change her worldview for the better:

In Danbury I had learned to hasten the days by chasing the enjoyment in them, no matter how elusive. Some people on the outside look for what is amiss in every interaction, every relationship, and every meal; they are always trying to hang their mortality on improvement. It was incredibly liberating to instead tackle the trick of making each day fly more quickly (193).

The Camp is banning cigarettes, and the smokers are on edge. While this ban has created a chaotic atmosphere, it’s counterbalanced by the Camp’s diminishing population: “The place felt quiet, which was nice, but I missed my loud friends and neighbors who had departed: Allie B., Colleen, and Lili Cabrales” (194). Kerman attends the annual Danbury job fair, an “event that paid lip service to the fact that its prisoners would rejoin the world” (195). Kerman recognizes that the justice system fails to help inmates re-assimilate after incarceration: “So far I had witnessed no meaningful effort to prepare inmates for successful reentry into society, other than the handful of women who had gone through the intensive drug treatment program” (195).