News & Announcements
Soros Justice Media Fellow Releases New Book
Soros Justice Media Fellowship alumna Jennifer Gonnerman has published Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett.
Life on the Outside tells the story of Elaine Bartlett, a woman who spent sixteen years behind bars for selling cocaine — a first offense — under New York’s controversial Rockefeller drug laws. The book opens on the morning of January 26, 2000, when she walks out of Bedford Hills prison. At 42, Elaine has virtually nothing: no money, no job, no real home.
In recent years, the United States has imprisoned more than two million people while making few preparations for their eventual release. Now these prisoners are coming home in record numbers, as unprepared for “life on the outside” as society is for them. In her book, Jennifer Gonnerman calls attention to this mounting national crisis by crafting an intimate portait of Bartlett and her family.
For more information, please visit her website www.lifeontheoutside.com.
