With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, the author barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187-424, one of the millions of people who disappear "down the rabbit hole" of the American penal system. From her first strip search to her final release, she learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. Here she tells the story of those long months locked up in a place with its own codes of behavior and arbitrary hierarchies, where a practical joke is as common as an unprovoked fight, and where the uneasy relationship between prisoner and jailer is constantly and unpredictably recalibrated. This is a look into the lives of women in prison; why we lock so many away and what happens to them when they are there.

"Now a Netflix original series"--Cover. Includes a reader's guide and questions for discussion (p. [315]-327).