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| Book Reviews | Orange is the New Black: My ence out of her system, she moved on and the fact that she was allowed to Year in a Women’s Prison to a real life and a relationship with her self-surrender rather than being held in fiancé, Larry, who clearly did not know custody, seems to have escaped Ker- By Piper Kerman what he was getting himself into. Years man. In addition, she was not waiting Spiegel & Grau, New, York, NY, 2010. 295 after the criminal events took place, the to go into a penitentiary, although she pages, $25.00. knock came at Kerman’s door and the calls it that in the passage just quoted; federal agents showed up to confront rather, it was a camp. A penitentiary is her with her past. She faced drug con- a high-security prison, whereas camps EVIEWED BY ON AND S R J M. S spiracy and money laundering charges, have the lowest level of security of any Prison memoirs are a niche genre. with mandatory minimum sentences federal institution. The most celebrated are soul-search- and the threat of a decade-long prison Kerman’s narrative gets stranger as it ing accounts of incarceration (justified sentence if she went to trial. What did continues. She relates how she managed or not), transformation, and redemp- she do? She did what most defendants to survive in the camp and how the Sun- tion. They offer a glimpse into an- charged with federal conspiracy do: she day New York Times came on Monday other world—one with different rules, cooperated. Indeed, this is how Kerman (she eagerly turns to the “Styles” sec- a different vocabulary, and a different herself was brought into the net. When tion). Kerman recounts “to my horror” power structure. They can be harrow- one of the couriers for the conspiracy that she was receiving two subscriptions ing accounts, showing insight painfully was caught, he or she rolled and point- to The New Yorker from her family and gained and deeply felt. ed the finger at another, that one did the got the most mail of any inmate as well It is fair to say that Piper Kerman’s same, and so on. In fact, Kerman’s for- as a steady stream of books. Her uncle memoir is the first that reads like a mer lover, who had gotten her involved sent her a book called Japanese Street preppie’s handbook to prison life. The in “the trade,” named her after having Slang, because “you never know when title itself smacks of smugness. Her last been arrested and given the opportu- you’re going to need the right insult.” meal before she turns herself in to be- nity to cooperate. The penalties are so Without a doubt, this is the only prison gin serving a 15-month sentence at a severe that defendants, if given the op- memoir—and possibly the only book federal correctional facility in Danbury, portunity by prosecutors, almost always ever—in which a traumatic confronta- Conn., is a foie gras sandwich and a save themselves by turning on others. tion, at which the protagonist lays down Diet Coke. A climactic showdown oc- Kerman was no exception. She coop- the law, occurs at a salad bar. When a curs over—what else?—salad bar eti- erated and was allowed to plead guilty new inmate sought to throw her weight quette. While most inmates are fight- to money laundering in exchange for around by telling Kerman to stop pick- ing against prejudice or arguing for a the conspiracy charge being dropped. ing the spinach out of the mixed greens finding of prejudice in their counsel’s She caught a break: her sentence was and to move on, Kerman responded. “I alleged ineffective performance, Ker- only 15 months. I say “only” because, opened my mouth, mad enough to spit, man reads Pride and Prejudice while in the federal system, that is a short and said loudly, ‘I don’t eat iceberg let- lying in her bunk. Even Martha Stewart time—15 months, with credit for good tuce!’” “‘I don’t care what you eat, just (another Danbury alum) would have time, is barely over a year. Yet, to Ker- don’t be pickin’ in there!’” responded thought this a tad precious. man, it felt as if she were going away the antagonist, whom Kerman calls “Big After Kerman graduated from Smith for years or decades. Mouth.” A friend of Kerman’s then ma- College in 1992, she sought a bohemian It is hard to imagine a more solip- terialized at her side to stare down Big experience, so she waited tables in her sistic account than Kerman’s. She tells Mouth, who eventually slunk away. This college town and somehow (?) fell into her story as if it were a research pa- sounds more like a high school cafeteria an international drug-dealing conspir- per or an anthropological study with spat than a prison confrontation. acy, which took her to Europe. Most her at the center. Remember the foie Interwoven in her account are de- college graduates go abroad to see the gras sandwich? Kerman recounts wait- scriptions of Kerman’s relationships with sights; Kerman goes to launder drug ing to be taken in to start serving her her family and with the long-suffering money and ends up in Paris, Brussels, sentence: “Larry handed me a foie gras Larry, as well as some reflection on how and Zurich, acting as a courier of dirty sandwich that he had made from last she ended up in prison. She recounts money at the behest of a girlfriend (and night’s leftovers. I wasn’t hungry at all how she ended up in prison, but she paramour). Let’s see: graduated from an but unwrapped it from the tinfoil and does not seem to grasp the real gravity elite college—check; rebelled against munched every gourmet bite miser- of what she did or how lucky she actu- her parents—check; experimented ably. I am fairly certain that I was the ally was. Her family was horrified at her with bisexuality—check; gained some first Seven Sisters grad to eat duck liver arrest but stood by her, showing incredi- working experience—check; and be- chased with a Diet Coke in the lobby of ble support. Kerman thinks that she was came involved in an international drug a federal penitentiary. Then again, you able to get the plea break because she conspiracy—check. never know.” The cruelty of how foie had an excellent private lawyer. Good Once Kerman got that last experi- gras is made, the choice of the meal, thing, too, she explains, because even 60 | The Federal Lawyer | June 2010 good public defenders are overworked Foucault during her courses at Smith, Three Felonies a Day: How the and would not have been able to do surely her editors must have recog- Feds Target the Innocent what her counsel did. I beg to differ. nized that better writers and thinkers She got the break because she was min- have made sharper observations about By Harvey A. Silverglate imally involved, had information that prison life. Kerman does give the read- Encounter Books, New York, NY, 2009. was valuable to the government, and er a sense of the ebb and flow of the 323 pages, $25.95. was white and privileged. She benefit- institution, but the experience of serv- ed from prosecution policies that give ing 15 months differs dramatically from deals in return for cooperation. In many doing five or 10 years, which is the fate REVIEWED BY ELIZABETH KELLEY districts, she would not have been af- of many female inmates convicted of The stories of federal prosecutions forded such an opportunity. drug charges and sentenced under the that Harvey Silverglate tells in Three Perhaps I am too harsh. Kerman harsh mandatory minimum penalties. Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the shares her insights about those inmates Kerman came into contact with the Innocent make this one of the scari- who lacked her advantages: various tropes of the prison account: est books I have ever read. Alan Der- the hardened inmate with a heart of showitz’s foreword to the book sets Most of the women in the Camp gold, the long-termer named “Pops,” the tone: In prosecuting people under were poor, poorly educated, and the lesbian, and the minority inmates vague criminal statutes, the United came from neighborhoods where who befriended her. The camp is di- States is becoming perilously like the the mainstream economy was verse, with ethnic and racial factions. former Soviet Union. These statutes are barely present and the narcotics Anglos were the minority. There were so vague that almost any type of con- trade provided the most opportu- not the gang affiliations so prevalent in duct can conceivably fall under them. nities for employment. Their typi- male institutions, but this, after all, was In fact, the point of the book’s title is cal offenses were for things like federal prison camp. that most people unintentionally com- low-level dealing, allowing their Her stay at Danbury lasted less than a mit three felonies a day. The result, apartments to be used for drug year. Kerman was then sent to a prison Silverglate and Dershowitz agree, has activity, serving as couriers, and in Oklahoma City, on her way to Chica- been an explosion of federal prosecu- passing messages, all for low wag- go to testify at the trial of “Mr. Big.” On tions in recent years. es. Small involvement in the drug her way to testify, she encounters and As such, the federal court system is trade could land you in prison for rooms with her old friend and paramour no longer focused on finding truth and many years, especially if you had who got her involved in the drug busi- promoting justice.

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