David McGuire, staff attorney for the ACLU of Connecticut, talks with author Piper Kerman.
A letter is often taken for granted, but not by prisoners when it is an essential lifeline to the outside world.
“Prisoners live and die by that mail,” said author and former inmate Piper Kerman. It is “reassurance that there’s someone on the outside who cares about them.”
When the correction system retains or refuses mail, it not only adversely affects the prisoners but also family and friends who are trying to stay connected to the person, said Kerman, whose memoir, Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, reflects on her time at the federal prison in Danbury.
She shared her prison experience and fight for prison reform Monday at the Milton and Ethel Sorokin Symposium at the UConn School of Law in Hartford. The symposium, sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut and the law school, put the spotlight on Censorship and the Rights of Prisoners.
Welcoming remarks were given by Timothy S. Fisher, dean and law professor at the school; Andy Schatz, president of the ACLU of Connecticut; and Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut.
The ACLU is probably known more for combating over-incarceration, cruel and unusual punishment and discrimination, Schneider said. “Yet First Amendment issues arise all the time in prisons.”
Schneider said the discussion topic was prompted by Wally Lamb’s participation in the ACLU of Connecticut's Banned Books Readout in September. Lamb talked about the banning of his book She’s Come Undone at the York Correctional Institution in Niantic.
Kerman said she wrote her memoir to put a face on the prison population and to help give inmates a voice. She spent 13 months in prison, 11 of them in Danbury, on a drug-related money-laundering conviction. Her memoir has been adapted into an original series for Netflix. Now a communications consultant with nonprofits and other groups working in the public interest, she also serves as a board member of the Women’s Prison Association and speaks frequently on issues affecting prisoners.
In a conversational format, Kerman and David McGuire, staff attorney for the ACLU of Connecticut, tackled censorship, prisoners’ rights and over-incarceration before an engaged audience of about 200 people.
“It’s important to understand that prisoners do lose their rights when they go into prison,” McGuire said. “But prisoners don’t lose all their rights.” He explained that wardens and staff may withhold mail, books and other types of communication but they “have to show there is a real safety or security reason to prevent that book from getting in or that letter getting out.”
In the isolation of prison, reading materials and the flow of information are important for the life of the brain and survival, Kerman said.
It is difficult to imagine a less equal relationship than between staff and inmates, Kerman said, because prisons are all about control. The relationship at worse can be sexually abusive, particularly for female prisoners. A staff member can get a prisoner sent to solitary confinement, a punishment everyone dreads, she said.
After 10 days, a healthy person begins to deteriorate emotionally and physically and then it just snowballs, Kerman said.
Kerman also stressed that she has encountered staff members who were very kind, thoughtful and incredibly humane.
When asked what would help prison reform Kerman and McGuire responded: Reduce the prison population through criminal justice reform. Stop incarcerating people for non-violent or low-level crimes and address the jailing of people in the pre-trial phase because they cannot afford bail. Even people who are ultimately found not guilty are punished by pre-trial incarceration with the loss of employment, housing and sometimes parental rights.
Another crucial issue is the lack of mental health services, they said. People in need of help should be in the mental health system, not the criminal justice system.
The Milton and Ethel Sorokin is a legacy of the Center for First Amendment Rights, founded by Milton and Ethel Sorokin in 1993 to educate young people about the fundamental rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Sorokins, tireless advocates for civil liberties, practiced law together in Hartford for 40 years. He died in 1996 and she died in 2012.
- Vivian Dennis
