Piper Eressea Kerman[1] (born September 28, 1969) is an American author. She was indicted in 1998 on charges of feloniousmoney-laundering activities, and sentenced to 15 months' detention in a federal correctional facility, of which she eventually served 13 months. Her memoir of her prison experiences, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison (2010), was adapted into the critically-acclaimed Netflix comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black (2013). Since leaving prison, Kerman has spoken widely about women in prison and problems with the federal prison system. She now works as a communication strategist for non-profit organizations.
Kerman was born in Boston into a family with a number of attorneys, doctors and educators.[2] She graduated from Swampscott High School in Swampscott, Massachusetts, in 1987,[3] and Smith College in 1992.[4] Kerman is a self-described WASP; however, she had a paternal grandfather who was Russian-Jewish.[4][5]
Kerman serves on the board of the Women's Prison Association and is frequently invited to speak to students of creative writing, criminology, gender and women's studies law, and sociology, and to groups, like the American Correctional Association's Disproportionate Minority Confinement Task Force, federal probation officers, public defenders, justice reform advocates and volunteers, book club and formerly and currently incarcerated people.[citation needed]
On February 25, 2014, Kerman testified at a hearing on "Reassessing Solitary Confinement" before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights chaired by Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin.[14]
On August 4, 2015, Kerman testified at a hearing on "Oversight of the Bureau of Prisons: First-Hand Accounts of Challenges Facing the Federal Prison System" before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chaired by Senator Ron Johnson.[15]
Since 2015, Kerman has worked as a communications strategist for nonprofits.[16]
Since her prison sentence, Kerman has spoken publicly many times on behalf of women in corrections and about her experience.[17]
In 2019, she appeared as a guest in the last episode of Orange Is the New Black in the last scene in the Ohio prison, when Piper visited Alex. Kerman sat two seats to the left of Alex as a convict visited by her husband (in real life). She makes a cameo appearance in the show’s opening credits as the convict who blinks.
Teresa Giudice, reality star and media personality whose prison memoir, Turning the Tables (2015), describes her 15-month incarceration from 2015 to 2016, for fraud, at the Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury, CT
Martha Stewart, celebrity who was incarcerated from 2004 to 2005, for offenses related to insider trading, at Federal Prison Camp, Alderson, WV
