Women Behind Bars – The Pen Hustle With Brandy Cavalli

Maserati Rick with girlfriend Tracy Cowan enjoying a night out — Detroit

Richard “Maserati Rick” Carter was a flamboyant and high-profile Detroit kingpin from the city’s East Side. He was famously murdered in 1988 while recovering in a hospital bed.

Tracy Cowan was deeply connected to the Detroit street scene of that era and was the beautiful long-time girlfriend and mother of two children with the notorious drug lord.

In 2003, years after Maserati Rick’s death, Cowan was arrested and convicted on non-violent federal/state drug and weapon charges involving cocaine, marijuana, and guns linked to a later relationship.

She received a harsh sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison, which criminal justice reform advocates often cited as an example of women associated with street figures receiving disproportionately heavy sentences.

Piper Kerman’s number one goal is to reduce the number of people in prison.

She spent 13 months at a correctional centre in Danbury, Connecticut from February 2004. As a white, middle-class prisoner, Kerman quickly became aware of the ways the prison system fails Americans – but particularly poor Americans, and people of colour. Since her stint behind bars, she’s become a vocal advocate for prisoners rights.

She’s been on the board of the Women’s Prison Association for six years and teaches non-fiction writing in two prisons in Ohio. And in a move that brought her story to prominence, she also wrote a memoir that served as the inspiration for hugely popular Netflix show Orange Is The New Black.