I’ve got a thing for prison, I guess…
Maybe it stems from my white-trash roots, long-nurtured by a stream of Canadian Mist whiskey and viewed through the lens of a Section 8 apartment’s dirty, cracked window. A good portion of my family has spent a significant amount of time incarcerated for a variety of reasons, both in county jails and federal penitentiaries. It runs deep in my blood, perhaps.
I studied corrections some in college, thinking, perhaps, that I could use my knowledge to enact a change in the way our penal system imbeds futility within its inhabitants, the way it endlessly perpetuates a culture of recidivism; after finding out the percentage of people behind bars for nonviolent drug offenses, however, I mostly walked away thinking “Holy shit, we sure do lock people up for a lot of stupid stuff.”
Nowadays, I mostly get my fix by watching TV shows about prisons.
I enjoy the cheesy, seedy, exploitative nature of Jail, which is basically an organic epilogue to COPS, and I totally love MSNBC’s Lockup. If you’ve never seen it—and it’s been on for 10 years, so how haven’t you?—it’s an “inside look” at correctional facilities across the nation. Each episode typically focuses on three different inmates and their oft-compelling stories. In a single hour, the viewer is transported to a foreign world where they see a rainbow of human emotions laid bare: the despair of someone facing a potentially interminable sentence, the simple joy brought by a letter from a loved one. (And at the very least, it teaches the viewer how to make a birthday cake using only ingredients that can be procured from a commissary.)
This is all just really a long way of saying that Orange is the New Black started streaming season three on Netflix Thursday night. (Hours early, even!)
When we left off–
***DON’T READ ON UNLESS YOU ALREADY KNOW OR DON’T CARE ABOUT SPOILERS***–
Figueroa was blowing Caputo in a weak effort to cover up her embezzlement, Rosa was triumphantly running down Vee in the stolen prison van, Bennett was confessing to Caputo that he impregnated Daya, and Piper was dealing with the fact that Larry was leaving her for her old BFF Polly.
You know, Normal Prison Shit.
If none of this made any sense, that means you DIDN’T watch season two—or maybe even season one, for that matter. If this is the case, 1) I’m sorry to hear that and 2) what happened? Since it premiered on Netflix (specifically FOR Netflix) in July of 2013, OITNB has been nothing short of a cultural juggernaut.
Based on Piper Kerman’s 2010 memoir Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, it is mostly an hour long, thirteen-episode-per-season affair that tells the story of a young, cute white girl who goes to prison. Shockingly, it is not a smooth transition.
But to explain away the whole thing as a typical “fish-out-of-water” tale is selling the show short. Instead, it’s a complex character study that focuses (often in depth) on 10 or 12 individuals, with Piper serving only as the unifying protagonist. It is a very well written, brilliantly acted, expertly paced piece of television that is worth its endless accolades.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve heard there’s a steamy lesbian sex-scene between Piper and her ex-girlfriend Alex in the second episode. What a time to be alive.
Nice article Lefty.
My brother, until his death, spent most of his life in Prison. His longest stretch was for fire bombing. The things he never got caught for would blanche the devil from red to white. What a fu*kin load the guy was. In his own way, he was one of the nicest people you could ever meet. Hard to explain.
I did worked with the Community Colleges here in the city back in the 70’s coordinating “Early Release Programs” for convicted veterans in prisons all over Missouri and Kansas. The Vets could get out earlier, if they showed they had income (GI Bill) and enrolled in college. I was very young, liberal and stupid back then and probably helped many a scum bag recidivist hit the streets in pursuit of a “Degree” (Wink wink). There are many failures and very few guys like Mark Smith. Oh well.
My favorite place to go, was the women’s prison in Tipton.
Wow.
Once, I was eating in the cafeteria and this, really, I mean really hot brunette was cleaning up the trays. Joe Perez and I were, of course, staring at her, hypnotized by not only her looks, but the incongruity of some one so hot in Prison. The warden laughed and asked if we liked her. We said, “Hell Yes!” He told us that she was in for killing her husband. I remember thinking that I would risk it.
Jeff City and Lansing were really nasty. Leavenworth was clean, but still dangerous. When I was in any of these prisons, I always knew, the sh*t could hit the fan at any moment. Seriously, you could feel it. These folks in prison, really do need to be in prison. My brother was very, very dangerous and most of the guys I helped in prison were just like him. I have always pretended that I did no harm in those days, but in reality, I probably helped low life bad guys get out too early and hurt people.
BTW, I watch “Lockup” all the time.
🙂
It’s depressing, but I still watch it.
?
Interesting stories. Thanks for sharing that perspective. And yeah, Lockup is super depressing at times, but it always makes me feel a bit better to know that, no matter how much sh*t is stressing me out, hey, at least I’m not there right now.
chuck, there are a lot of guys like Mark Smith around. They learned their lesson, did their time, try and make it all work. Ain’t easy with a felony to find a decent job.
I applaud you work in your younger days. A guy I worked with went to night school at Penn and law school at Dickenson. He started out as a defense attorney, doing a lot of public defending work. After a few years he had seen enough and heard so many lies he was numb. Today he is an Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Philadelphia region.
I spent a night in lockup in KC in the early 70s. That was enough to keep me on the sunny side of the street.
Thanks Orphan.
Hope you are right.
Havent seen OITNB but if it’s anything like OZ it’s about as accurate as Rachel Dolezal checking the ethnicity box on her last job application. Prison can best be summed up as a never ending series of waiting in line for crappy food (dont eat the bread if there’s a hole in the middle), unending hours of boredom and monotony, punctuated by occasional violent outbursts. Oh, and a never ending potpourri of unwashed armpits. I guess that doesnt make for good Television though. Lockdown is pretty entertaining and about as real as your going to get on tv. Personally Im looking forward to the new season of Ray Donavon , Jon Voight plays one of the most accurate depictions of the career criminal , ever.
It *feels* pretty honest. Well, to a degree. But then again, I’m not sure it strives for reality, necessarily. I think it can get a bit fanciful, but it is entertaining nevertheless. Definitely not trying to be Oz, that’s for sure.