From Adventure to Atonement: Piper Kerman's Journey

Piper Kerman was a young educated college graduate that made a really bad decision to engage in money laundering for a friend/ lover Nora who was involved in illegal drug trafficking. Kerman, like many young women straight out of college, longed for adventure and did not feel that her degree in theater was being utilized at her jobs as a waitress. Nora asked Kerman to accompany her on her extravagant trips to Paris and Bali where they lived for months off of drug money. Nora was in charge of making contacts and transporting drugs. After a while, the life of adventure that she longed for was replaced with a need for simplicity and a life that didn’t involve criminality. As a result, Nora moved back home and became reacquainted with a man named Larry that she had once worked with. After a while, the two fell in love and started a new life together. Kerman left

The only thing she was guilty of was transporting money across country lines. She was a small participant in a large scale drug ring. In addition, her motive for even becoming a part of the lifestyle is being she wanted adventure. She did not want to engage in criminal activity, instead she wanted to take advantage of the economic status of her lover Nora. Labeling is very important when discussing female criminality because women incarcerated for drug offenses are not major players but maintain a very minimal role in process. Most women are innocent by standers to their intimate partners who actually deserves to be labeled and punished. Thus, women should not have the same labels as men. Also labeling mechanisms also effect a woman’s reentry into society. Since women are usually the bread winners for their homes, it is vital that the crimes that they commit are adequately given names that support their role in a criminal act. Some jobs do not hire women based on how they are labeled or what their conviction is