Orange is the New Black (OITNB) is super relatable, right? It’s full of snappy pop culture references, friendships, vices, love, betrayal, sex and millennial resourcefulness (sanitary-towel pool sliders, anyone?), and just happens to be set in America's cash-strapped prisons. But, based on Piper Kerman’s memoirs of time spent behind bars for drug dealing, OITNB is Netflix’s soapy rendition of actual horrible stuff that, to some extent, can and does happen within America’s judicial system. IRL Piper isn’t just a writer, she’s an activist seeking prison reform. So though us on the outside can relate to OITNB’s lolsy bits, what about women inside British prisons? What parts of OITNB can they relate to - that is, if they were allowed Netflix?
We spoke to Jenny Earle, programme director for reducing women’s imprisonment from The Prison Reform Trust, and also collated data from Women in Prison and the Howard Reform League.
Prisons are overcrowded
Yep, just like in Litchfield, when all the single bunks are doubled up, women’s prisons in the UK are overcrowded. In July 2016, Holloway Prison was closed, after then-chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne announced it would be sold off to be developed into - you guessed it - luxury flats. At least 100 women were then moved to other prisons. But that’s not all, Jenny says: ‘There has been an increase in the number of women going to prison has occurred at the same time as cuts to the number of prison officer numbers something that we haven’t been restored.’
On top of this, government scheme Transforming Rehabilitation was introduced in 2015. Beforehand, anyone who’d been to prison for over six months needed to be closely supervised for 12 months in case they re-offended. The new rule means that this level of supervision applies to anyone who’s been to prison, even for just one day. Considering over 50% of female prisoners are there for under six months, Jenny says: ‘It would be one thing if it actually represented support, but what it represents is further exposure to punishment.
'There’s been an 80% increase in the number of women recalled to prison since the scheme came in and this is causing major problems for women’s prisons, it’s increased the churn of women sent back to prison for what is probably a technical breach of their licence period.’
‘They’re sent back to prison for two weeks and it’s disruptive for the individual and the prison. It has certainly also contributed to overcrowding'
The solution: fewer cuts, and a reform of Transforming Rehabilitation to take into consideration women’s needs.
Women in prison have lived through trauma
In series 1, most of OITNB's comedy was about the culture shock, a WASPy woman meeting inmates who had grown up around drugs and gangs and violent men and really utterly poor and broken families. And it’s this sort of life that most women in UK prisons have had before getting there.
Jenny says: ‘A majority of women in prison will have experienced histories of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, childhood sexual abuse as well as prolonged exposure to coercive relationships.
‘They are much more likely than men to have been coerced into offences, like offending to support their partners’ drug habits, or may have been trafficked into offending. Prison seems a harsh response to that sort of offending that women are caught up in.’
The solution? ‘We need more focus on building women’s centres and women’s services that can step in at an earlier stage so we’re doing work with a number of police forces around the country to get police to take a more problem-solving approach.'
‘It saves the police’s time for more serious offences and diverts women in trouble for relatively minor non-violent offending into the women’s centres that understand their history of abuse and trauma and can hold their hand while they connect with various support services.’
Women prisoners are far from their families
Remember how infrequently so many of the inmates in Litchfield are visited? That's the same in the UK, because there are only 4,000 women in the prison system in the UK, and there aren’t lots of small prisons dotted around, women can be placed in homes really far from their families.
Jenny says: ‘Since Holloway Prison closed, there is no women’s prison in London. Women are sent all over the country and transport links can be terrible. It affects a woman’s ability to maintain contact with her children and family members and also getting day release to go and do work. She can pass all the tests to get day release but she can be stuck out in the middle of nowhere. There are no prisons for women in Wales, so around 400 Welsh women are in Eastwood Park in Gloucestershire, making up more than half of its population.
The solution? 'We don’t want the building of more women’s prisons, or prisons in Wales: we want much more access to community penalties, out of court disposals and earlier interventions and diversions. Because most of the UK’s female prisoners are women who have been failed by society, they need more support, better healthcare, more access to drug and alcohol addiction services and help dealing with violent and coercive relationships. If those underlying factors were tackled, we’d see fewer women getting into trouble and ending up in prison.
Women prisoners lose their kids
Remember Mother’s Day in Litchfield? Jenny explains that female prisoners are quite likely to be mothers as their criminal career starts, compared to men, a little later in life. ‘A lot of these women are troubled and their homes may not be perfect homes but it’s still often much worse for the children to be abandoned. A lot of women won’t disclose they have children because they worry about them being taken into care. They do their best to make arrangements without letting authorities know they have children. This then means judges don’t take into account the impact on the children if their mothers are imprisoned.
'There is a reluctance to recognise the specific impacts of separating children from their mother. Primary carers are mostly women and their lives are often affected by economic inequality and a lack of support around childcare and parenting.’
The solution: again, fewer women being sent to prison in the first place, completing community orders in their local area.
The one big difference between Litchfield and real life? There might be some hope for reform over here. As Jenny explains: ‘There is a political consensus on the need for reforms for women’s justice, to reduce imprisonment for minor offending by women. But we haven’t seen yet is a coherent strategy delivered by any party that’s been in power in the last 10 years, and we want to see that in the next government.’
‘We’re on the verge of a breakthrough. All the bits of the jigsaw for a women’s strategy are in place but it needs a government’s energy and drive behind it and to attach some money to women’s services rather than to building new prisons.’
Some fast facts for you:
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Women taken to prisons are often taken in prison vans containing mostly male prisoners, forced into close quarters with male criminals.
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Nearly half (46%) of women in prison say they have domestic violence in their histories and 53% of them say they have experienced child abuse.
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Most women in prison have committed non-violent offences
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There has been an increase in the number of women prisoners taking their own lives while in custody. For the first time since 2007, figures for 2015 were higher per 1000 prisoners than they were in the male prison population.
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There are 81,000 men in prison and 4,000 women, meaning there are 20 times as many men in prison as there are women.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.