OITNB Author Piper Kerman Talks About Big Change Baltimore Forum

Piper Kerman, author of "Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison," is scheduled as one of featured speakers at the Big Change Baltimore forum. The forum runs from 3:30 to 7 p.m. today at Center Stage, 700 North Calvert St. Kerman's book has been adapted into a critically acclaimed Netflix series for which she is a consultant.

Kerman will be appearing at today's event with Bill Keller, former executive editor of The New York Times and now editor-in-chief of The Marshall Project. The event is presented by Open Society Institute-Baltimore. Other speakers include professor and author Ian Haney Lopez, UMBC president Freeman A. Hrabowski and actress Maria Broom.

Following is a Q&A excerpt from The Baltimore Sun

Q. Can you tell me what your role is going to be in the Open Society program in Baltimore?

A. Well, the Open Society Foundation, as I'm sure you know, has been investing in Baltimore for a number of years, and has made Baltimore part of their criminal justice reform strategy, a proving ground in a lot of ways. And I'm really looking forward to this conversation. I've never met Bill Keller face to face, but his work is, of course, well known. I'm looking forward to a spirited conversation with him about issues that are relevant to folks living in and around Baltimore...

Q. Could you be specific about some of those issues?

A. Some of the things that we see in Baltimore and obviously in Maryland, you know, include Maryland's spending on criminal justice and prisons being very high and, you know, there are a lot of other states spending a ton of money on incarceration as well. I always describe investment in prisons and jail cells as doubling down on failure.

Investing in the things in a community that really do make it much more safe - things like great public schools, thriving libraries, hospitals and community health centers - what you find is that those communities are prosperous communities, thriving communities and really safe communities.

And when we pour money into prisons and jails, ultimately, that's not going to yield us a ton of return as a community goes. That's not money you're going to get back in a positive way.

... So, at the very frontline is this question of public dollars and public investment, and what do we want our government putting our tax dollars into...

Read the orginial article here

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Photo credit: Brian Bowen Smith