Prison Life
Some of the actual things Piper Kerman saw in prison were really graphic, intense and eye-opening. She wrote in her memoir, “I had learned a lot since arriving in prison five months ago: how to clean house using maxipads, how to wire a light fixture, how to discern whether a duo were best friends or girlfriends, when to curse someone in Spanish, knowing the difference between “feelin’ it” (good) and “feelin’ some kinda way” (bad), the fastest way to calculate someone’s good time, how to spot a commissary ho a mile away, and how to tell which guards were players and which guards were noth-in’ nice. I even mastered a recipe from the prison’s culinary canon: cheesecake.”
Prison Life
Race In Prison
During her NPR interview, Kerman went into how race played a huge factor in prison to organize people by groups. However, she emphasized that as time went on, these “tribal” organizations loosened up, adding, “While initially people might sort of gravitate toward the people who are the same color of them, I think that matters less and less the longer you’re there.”
Race In Prison