Orange Might Be the New Black...But It's Still Orange

Today's show was triggered by a confluence.

"Orange Is The New Black," a Netflix series based on Piper Kerman's memoir of a year spent at the Danbury federal women's prison, has become a favorite of critics and audiences.

Meanwhile, federal corrections officials have been pursuing a plan to convert Danbury back to a men's prison. Kerman took to the op-ed page of the New York Times to oppose the plan and to enlighten us about the importance of family contact to prisoner and to their children.

We lock a lot of people up -- far more per capita than any other nation in the world.
Kerman's essay offered a startling figure -- 1 in 28 children has a parent in prison.

Reading her book is an eye-opener about the conditions in one of the "best" of those prisons and about the offenses for which women often receive very long sentences. So today, we'll look women's prison and at alternatives.