One quarter of women who are released from prison are arrested again within six months of release. Like these women, Susan Burton, founder of A New Way of Life, was in and out of prison throughout her early adulthood. She joins host Piper Kerman to talk about the cycle of incarceration, a cycle Danielle Brooks’ character Taystee also experienced throughout the seven seasons of Orange is the New Black. Danielle and Piper talk this out in the final episode of From Where She Stands. Learn more about the Poussey Washington Fund and get involved at www.Crowdrise.com/PWF
One quarter of women who are released from prison are arrested again within six months of release. Like these women, Susan Burton, founder of A New Way of Life, was in and out of prison throughout her early adulthood. She joins host Piper Kerman to talk about the cycle of incarceration, a cycle Danielle Brooks’ character Taystee also experienced throughout the seven seasons of Orange is the New Black. Danielle and Piper talk this out in the final episode of From Where She Stands.
Learn more about the Poussey Washington Fund and get involved at www.Crowdrise.com/PWF
Danielle: It’s funny because I actually ran into this—well, someone had ran into me on the street in Brooklyn and they just was like, “Yo, you mind if I get some food? Like you pay for me to get some food.” So, we go and he was telling me how he just got out of prison and stuff and how he’s trying to get on his feet. And I was like, “Wow, how easily, you know, he could make a choice that lands him back there, just of pure, ‘I need a meal’.” You know? And I think that was the story for Taystee, it was very much more convenient for her to stay in prison. To have a place to rest her head and to have a, you know, a meal, a hot meal and, you know, it tells me like how messed up it is for a lot of people on the outside, you know, to not even want to be on the outside. I’m Danielle Brooks and I play “Taystee” Tasha Jefferson.
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Piper: This is From Where She Stands, a podcast connecting the storylines of Orange is the New Black with stories from real women whose lives have been impacted by prison, I’m Piper Kerman.
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Piper: Episode 5: (Home)coming, the character Taystee, played by Danielle Brooks was a story with a lot of ups and downs (clip plays). She would go from being full of hope about being released from prison to feeling isolated and overwhelmed out in the world (clip plays). It wasn’t long before Taystee wound up right back at the place she was trying so hard to leave. Her story, the story of recidivism is a familiar one. Every year, nearly 700,000 people are released from American prisons and more than half of them will return.
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Susan: I believe my mother and father came West, to the land of milk and honey.
Piper: Meet Susan Burton.
Susan: The streets paved with gold, running from the South, from the terror of the South. They landed in projects called Aliso Village and that’s where I was born. I have memories of childhood abuse and violence and I have memories of playing Jacks on the cement floors and having tea parties with my friends. So, there are mixed memories of Aliso Village.
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Piper: Susan Burton commands the attention of the room when she enters. Her long locks rest against bold, geometric prints on her blouse. She’s told the story of her life many times before and she’s detailed it in her book, Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women. And when she shares her story, as hard as it is to tell, she does remember the joy along with the moments that she’s tried hard to bury.
Susan: I did not feel safe and protected as a young child. As a young child I learned to navigate different situations and different abuses. I began to learn to negotiate those community harms and abuses and predators. And that became a real way of life for me, to be cautious, to be careful. But I don’t care how cautious and how careful I was, I ran into abuses.
Piper: The abuses were many, she was molested as a child. She became a shell of herself at home. But it was at school where Susan felt safe, it was a refuge for her.
Susan: I thrived in that learning environment and when I was 13 years old, I had a growing spurt. And those days in school your—the hem of your skirt had to hit the chair or your skirt was considered too short. And there was no hem to be let out and the vice principal saw me walking down the hall and she suspended me from school for two weeks and at that point I fell behind. When I got suspended, we were doing multiplication and fractions. When I got back to school, we were at algebra.
Piper: And just like that, everything started to change for Susan.
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Susan: In the two weeks that I was gone, you know, I learned how to hang out. And we know from research what happens to children who are suspended from school, they fall behind, they find other things. I actually experienced juvenile hall during that time, I got incorrigible and angry and I fought and I hung out and my mother called the police. I got put on probation and I got sent to juvenile hall.
Piper: It was around this time that Susan had her first child. She was 14 and everything started to unravel for her.
Susan: I remember when I went back to school, after I had my child, and the teacher was asking people what they had did over the summer. And when I said I had a child he was like, “Well, what are you doing here? You need to be at home taking care of your baby.” And there was a snicker across the classroom, that was the night I stayed out all night.
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Piper: Susan remembers she started drinking a lot.
Susan: When I was first incarcerated it was for the misdemeanors of prostitution. But then, I got it together and I didn’t go back to prison for a long time.
Piper: She had a second child, a son, and he was five years old when he was hit by a car and killed and this is what broke her. It was an off-duty LAPD officer who hit him and her son’s death pulled her into her darkest place. She drank more, sold drugs, did drugs, she became undone, thrown back in a cycle of incarceration. Prison became a very familiar place for Susan.
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Susan: Ultimately, I was incarcerated for possession of drugs. I would get released and I would home and pray and I would be resolved that I would get it together. So, they would put you on a bus, I’d get off the bus downtown, skid row. They had destroyed my ID, I had nothing to start with except they would release me with $200, what they call gate money. And I’m supposed to make a life with that and it's just impossible. I felt defeated, I felt like a failure and I felt useless and then I got to the place that I felt hopeless, that I would die in this state, this miserable state. A miserable state of hopelessness and helplessness because all that I had was not enough to pull it together.
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Piper: And this is where I want to take a step back. There’s one thing about Susan’s story that is all too common for many women who have been in this situation. There just doesn’t seem to be any way out. Over half of formerly incarcerated people are returned to prison within three years of being released. And this isn’t always for a new offense or crime, it can be something as minor as missing a probation meeting, being late for curfew or failing a drug test. It was on Susan’s sixth release from prison that she found something that changed her life.
Susan: It was a year later that I found that place in Santa Monica that gave me the help that I needed. And there I found a whole different world. It was like a world of plenty, it was like a world of respect, it was like a world of safety, it was like a world of dignity.
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Piper: This rehab center in Santa Monica was the first place her addiction was treated as an illness instead of a crime. She found a safe place to lay her head at night, to start over and to talk through the things that were holding her back. Susan needed this to move forward in the free world, everyone does. And for Susan and many who are released from prison, starting over, as terrifying as it was, meant starting to feel things, see things and hear things differently.
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Susan: You know, when I walk into this house and I hear women laughing or chuckling or cooking in the kitchen or, you know, just the movement of life, that’s a really happy sound for me.
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Piper: That laughter Susan is talking about is from the women at the first home opened by A New Way of Life. Susan found the organization in 1998 and these homes are for recently released women to get back on their feet. They provide help with housing, job placement and programs that focus on the emotional adjustment of being free again.
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Female: What I really like today is the sound of cars and the sound of kids.
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Piper: Today the women sit in a circle talking about the sounds that are keeping them grounded in the free world.
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Female: It’s just like so joyful to hear little kids even when they’re arguing or crying. It’s just amazing to see those little people again.
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Female 2: The peace, the quietness, the stillness, the sound of safety. Not the alarms in the background of danger. Yeah, so just the serenity.
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Female 3: Now, I just love the sound of the airplanes flying over the house.
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Piper: Susan nods proudly looking around the room. This place that she’s created for women who have walked a similar path.
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Susan: The intention there is to provide a place where women can belong and that they can feel safe. That they are supported while they struggle through the whole reentry process. That they learn how to pay it forward, that intention and hope is that they never, ever go back to prison and that they find their voice and they no longer are vulnerable.
Piper: Many of the women have spent the majority of their lives in prison. And now, on the outs, its really all about holding it together.
Female 4: I’m relearning how to live life. I took life for granted out there before I got arrested. And I never stopped to smell the roses, I never stopped to pet a dog, I never—and I get yelled at all the time because I’m petting dogs.
Female 5: Of course, like I haven’t been perfect since I’ve been home but I’m not going to stop my fight.
Female 6: I’m kind of just taking it one day at a time.
Female 7: I took an Uber; I took an Uber for the first time. It was exciting and I got to see my grandchildren. And my one grandson is exactly like me. You know, he’s 13, we just spend hours and hours together and he says, “Nona, I really like you.” And that was, that was—that to me was better than saying, “I love you, Nona.” And that just really boosted my heart.
Piper: It’s here that the women practice for job interviews and write cover letters.
Susan: We provide housing, transportation, clothing. We support them to find medical services, we have a therapist, we have attorneys on site, we have just a real array of support for the women.
Piper: But none of that matters without the stability and safety that A New Way of Life provides. And that’s something that many of these women have never had before. The women can stay at this home as long as they need to. And that’s because Susan knows all too well what some women face without support.
Susan: You can’t keep your appointments if you don’t have a place to bathe and have security and stability. I think they all feel pretty secure here.
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Piper: People who have experienced incarceration are about ten times more likely to be homeless than the general public. Renting an apartment is hard enough, the money, the credit checks, the landlords. Imagine that with a record, a record that prevents you from qualifying for things like public housing. For a lot of women, the situations that led them to prison are still waiting for them outside the gates. And returning to a toxic living situation makes starting over near impossible unless she can find a new place that is safe and stable.
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Piper: Every morning the women sit in a circle. They talk about the things that they’re excited about, the things that they’re afraid of and the people they miss that are still in prison. Those feelings of survivor’s guilt. There are things about prison that they will never forget, like the way they were treated by correctional officers, working for just a few cents an hour or the gray vegetables that they were served in the chow hall. Those things sometimes sneak up on them.
Susan: The sound that I hated most was the doors opening for people to be unlocked out of their cells. It sounded like machine guns going off. Yeah, yeah.
Female 8: Especially when they repeatedly do it like du-du-du-du.
Susan: Du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du.
Female 9: Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.
Female 10: But way louder.
Female 8: Yeah, it’s louder.
Piper: But right now, as the women sit in this house, the planes roar overhead and the birds, they’re so loud you can’t help but wonder if they’re trying to fly through the window to join the group circle.
Female 11: I stay on that path and stay focused because I like this life today. And I have a second chance, which, you know, a lot of us don’t get that opportunity. So, I have that chance, I love the roses, I love the animals, I love the flowers, I love the trees, I love the birds, I love the peace. And that’s nothing the way I was before, nothing. Yeah, I was like a dark cloud walking around the cell like, “Damn.” I was just so angry and bitter, you know. So, yes, a total transformation, yes.
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Piper: During the seven seasons of Orange is the New Black Danielle Brooks’ character, Taystee, went through a drastic transformation. She was tested in so many ways, her release, her return, the tragic loss of a friend, becoming a leader, being wrongfully convicted. Danielle joined me to talk about how Taystee has changed and changed her.
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Piper: Taystee is probably one of the single most beloved characters on the Netflix show Orange is the New Black. And with good reason, right?
Danielle: Oh, for sure.
Piper: Because she’s about the right thing, like she treats other people well, you know? There’s nothing not to love about Taystee and yet, what we see happen to her is really harsh, right?
Danielle: Hm-hmm [affirmative].
Piper: Can you talk a little bit about, you know, what that was like to portray and some of those reasons behind that experience for that character?
Danielle: Yes, first of all, when I read the book and started this process, having seen Taystee go from Delicious to Taystee, you know what I mean? Like I was looking for every detail in your memoir about who this woman was going to become and being very transparent with what has failed her, which is the system. And being very transparent with, you know, how corrupt it is. And going full force on trying to change that. You might not have all the resources to do and become the next Angela Davis but with what you have, there is always something that you can do. And I just really thought that was admirable, you know, this woman who’s incarcerated still finding a way to fight.
Piper: How do you think differently now, you know, seven years later, about the questions that ground that character and that ground this series?
Danielle: Some of the lessons that I’ve learned in my now true adult years, is one, is, you know, being that she didn’t believe that she was capable of handling herself outside. She didn’t think that she could do it. There’s times that I have felt like I could not do it, you know, even as successful and as I’ve gotten to this point in my life. Sometimes I’m doubtful as well. Taystee has seen so many people come and go in her life and, you know, to be a child of the system, to be coming out of foster care not having a family, finding a family, losing that family, people coming and dying and all of these things that she’s battling with, you know, she still did not give up. Even when she’s at the lowest of the low, she finds a way to pick herself back up.
Piper: So, every year in this country 700,000 people get released from prison. And having played this character, I wonder what your thoughts are about what we need to do to make those people’s journeys home safer and more successful.
Danielle: I think where the system is lacking is definitely in the rehabilitation portion. And I feel like a part of that is for us as, you know, outsiders, we need to be more proactive. And I think it’s hard enough being away from your family and, you know, being in the circumstance that you’re in. So, it’s about, you know, having someone serve their time but that doesn’t mean it has to be torturous.
Piper: So many people, particularly here in the US, you know, have this idea that the conditions of confinement should be brutalizing and traumatic. And don’t really understand that when, you know, 95% of the people who we send to prison or jail are coming back to the community, we want them to come back in better shape, not in worse shape then they went in. Because if you think about, you know, why Taystee is in prison in the first place—
Danielle: Yes, good point.
Piper: … you know, what is this young woman’s life like even before prison let alone upon returning from prison.
Danielle: Hm-hmm [affirmative]. A lot of times we think, “Oh, well, this person needs to be punished.” And it’s really about like, “How can we help them?” You know? Right now, they might have to serve their time for whatever crime they did but how can we help them be better and how can we help them come back into society stronger then when they went in?
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Piper: This is the final episode of this series but we’re still moving forward with ways to support people who’s lives have been affected by prison. One thing we’ve done is launched The Poussey Washington Fund. The money raised from this fund will go to help eight organizations fighting to end the epidemic of mass incarceration of women in America. When you donate, you’ll contribute to the fight for criminal justice reform, immigration rights and helping women integrate back into the wider community after their sentences. To join us you can visit crowdrise.com/pwf.
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Piper: From Where She Stands is a production of Netflix and Pineapple Street Studios. From Netflix our executive producers are Nya Lee, Torie Gleicher and Brook Reece. From Orange is the New Black executive producers are Jenji Kohan, Tera Herrmann and myself, Piper Kerman. This series was created by Pineapple Street Studios, executive producers are Jenna Weiss-Berman, Max Linsky and Leila Day. The senior producer is Leila Day with producers Josh Gwynn and Justine Daum. Production assistance from the incredible Jessica Jupiter and Sophie Bridges. Our sound engineer is James Rollins. Music throughout the episode is by Salami Rose. We couldn’t have made this show without the women of Orange is the New Black. I also want to thank Susan Burton and the women at A New Way of Life.
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Debra: My name is Debra Paretis [phonetic 00:23:19].
Felicia: Hi, my name is Felicia Garcia.
Kimberly: Hi, my name is Kimberly Perez.
Rose: My name is Rose Wood.
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Piper: I’m Piper Kerman, thanks for listening.
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