PIPER KERMAN:

Yes, I was fortunate. I had a safe and stable place to live. I had a job that I started the week after I home from prison.

The vast majority of the women that I did time with didn't have all of those advantages, and in some cases none of those advantages. Many of the women that I did time with have come home successfully in one way or another.

A small handful of the women that I know have gone back to prison, and that's really heartbreaking. I will say that, for the people I know who have done the best since they came home in terms of turning their lives around, in terms of moving forward in a really positive way, their relationships with their families and the families' readiness to sort of be there as a resource for those people was, I think, the number one predictor.

And that's why it's so important if we choose to incarcerate a person that we make sure that they stay connected to their community and their family, because that's the thing that will ultimately determine whether they will return home to the community safely.