Reading in prison and rehabilitation. An analysis of piper Kerman's Orange is the New Black

Abstract

[EN]Fiction has always made readers to explore new horizons and share experiences with the rest of the world. My dissertation addresses the question of how literacy and reading are essential to an inmate's rehabilitation. The current policy of banning certain books in prison prompts people to consider the act of reading as a privilege for prisoners and a menace for the system. Bearing in mind the cultural, political and social aspects such as mass incarceration in the United States, I focus on the analysis of the novel Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman and the series by Netflix based on the same text, together with other articles and publications on related topics taken from reliable think tanks such as the Cato Institute, which provides information on prison conditions, or neuroscience articles, which give value to the question of adaptation and reflective reading.