'Orange is the New Black' Season 3 Release Date, News: Author Decries Level of Violence and Depravity in Prisons in Florida

With Season 3 of Orange is the New Black drawing ever closer, the author of the memoir that inspired the Emmy-winning Netflix series "Orange is the New Black" recently slammed "the level of violence and depravity" in Florida prisons.

Piper Kerman, whose 2010 best-selling memoir made her a celebrity, served 15 months in a federal prison for a drug trafficking crime she committed a decade before, Jacksonville reported on Tuesday.

"Sometimes people ask me what are the worst systems in the country, and you have to name-check Florida because the level of violence and depravity that is coming out of Florida's system, not from prisoners and inmates but from some of the people who operate those systems, is astonishing," said Kerman, who now regularly gives talks as an advocate for criminal justice reform and women's rights, during a visit to the Capitol on Tuesday.

"The level of unresolved deaths, murders, that are happening in Florida state prisons all over the state [is] jaw-dropping," she said.

As Kerman called for changes in the criminal justice system, she recalled the situation of female inmates like Latandra Ellington, an inmate at Lowell Correctional Institution in Ocala. Ellington died under suspicious circumstances last year after telling a family member through a letter that she feared being beaten by prison guards.

While in Tallahassee to attend an event at the Florida State University as a speaker, Sen. Eleanor Sobel invited Kerman to speak first to lawmakers who are trying to deal with inmate deaths and abuse as revealed by the Miami Herald.

Senators have proposed reforms such as increasing training for corrections officers, more inspection of facilities, creating new ways for anonymous reports of abuses, and toughening criminal penalties for officers who were found to mistreat inmates.

Lawmakers in the House and the Senate also support the creation of an independent corrections oversight commission that will set performance targets and evaluate facilities.

Kerman said Florida can look at how New York, California, Texas and Mississippi were able to improve operations in their respective prisons.

"Those big states have all moved really significant criminal justice reforms and specifically prison reforms in recent years," she said.

Kerman maintained that changes start with having the right leadership in place, prioritizing funding to improve prisons, and addressing issues such as mental health and substance abuse.

She criticized Florida for privatizing facilities and services. She cited healthcare provider Corizon Health, which services some Florida prisons, as having poor national track records.

"Reforming criminal justice systems in Florida has to take into consideration putting fewer people in prison and jail in the first place," Kerman said.

Kerman said she hoped her memoir will bring attention to the treatment of inmates. "I know that when I wrote the book my great hope was that the reader might come away with a different idea about who's in prison and why are they there and what really happens there," she said, "because my own personal experience was so different than anything that had been depicted previously in popular entertainment or in the media."

Orange is the New Black Season 3 will be released on Netflix later this year, although no precise release date has been scheduled yet. Most analysts so far have predicted that the new season could be launched in June 2015.