Life on the Outside

Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett, published in 2004, is a nonfiction account of the incarceration of New Yorker and mother of four Elaine Bartlett on felony drug charges and her struggle to reenter society following her release after 16 years in prison. Written by Jennifer Gonnerman, a staff writer for The New Yorker, the book is an indictment of the “Rockefeller laws,” New York statues that imposed harsher sentences for crimes involving the possession and sale of narcotics beginning in the early years of the so-called “War on Drugs.” Life on the Outside also explores the ways in which the penal system fails to prepare inmates for the reality of starting over as an “ex-con.” The book is an expanded version of a feature piece Gonnerman wrote for The Village Voice in 2000 entitled “The Miseducation of Elaine Bartlett.”

The book is divided into four sections. The first details the circumstances surrounding Elaine’s arrest and conviction. The second part revolves around her life in prison. The third and fourth sections relate Elaine’s attempts to rebuild her life after she is paroled and returns to her family.

At the beginning of this story, to secure enough money for a Thanksgiving dinner for her family, Elaine agrees to take possession of a small amount of cocaine. The plan is for Elaine to travel with the drugs from Manhattan to Albany in exchange for 2,500 dollars. However, both Elaine and her boyfriend Nate are arrested before the transaction is completed as a part of a set-up. During the subsequent legal proceedings, Elaine finds out she was carrying just enough of the drug to constitute an A-1 felony, which, under the Rockefeller laws— unbeknownst to Elaine—carries a lengthy mandatory minimum sentence. Elaine is offered a plea deal of only five years, which she rejects under the misconception that she could get a lesser sentence by going to trial given that this is her first offense. She convinces Nate that they should both go to trial. Elaine receives 20 years to life, and Nate is sentenced 25 years to life.



While in prison Elaine, struggles with feelings of loneliness and a lack of control over her day-to-day life. She learns that in order to obtain basic necessities, she has to steal them. She smokes marijuana as a coping mechanism. Elaine notes that prison requires a kind of duality of character which she finds jarring. Amongst the general prison population, she must be tough and always prepared for a fight, but when her children come to visit, she must be a loving and attentive mother. During those visits, to avoid adding to Elaine’s stress while serving her time, her children hide the numerous struggles they are facing on the outside from her. The children have been living with Elaine’s mother, Yvonne, in her cramped apartment along with her other children and grandchildren. The family is surviving primarily on Yvonne’s meager welfare checks. Elaine’s children downplaying their situation is not the only factor that contributes to her lack of preparedness for what will await her when she is released. Elaine participates in education and work initiatives while in prison but finds that these programs are inadequate in terms of easing her reentry into society.

Elaine is given clemency after serving 16 years in prison. She is released on parole and moves in with her mother in the already crowded apartment. Elaine finds that some members of her family resent her for not being around to help support them over the past several years. Her children admit that they are reluctant to get close to her because they are concerned that she will return to prison. She struggles to find employment or alternate housing both because of her felony conviction and because of the feelings of apathy and discouragement that prison so often engenders in inmates. Elaine notes that she spent most of her time in prison waiting to get out, but now that she has been released, she feels as though she is in a new kind of prison where she is still waiting—whether for her parole officer, her welfare caseworker, or more.

Over the years Gonnerman shadows her, Elaine’s son is also arrested and then released from prison, one of her brothers dies from AIDS, another from a stabbing, and her mother dies of a heart attack. Ultimately, Elaine is able to navigate the difficult requirements surrounding parole and does not return to prison. She finds a job at a nonprofit for homeless and low-income men and women and moves into a new apartment with her new 21-year-old boyfriend Deon. The couple also live with two of Elaine’s grandchildren. Compared to many former inmates, Elaine may be considered a success given that she was able to find employment and housing, pass her mandatory drug tests, and avoid violating parole or reoffending and returning to prison. However, Gonnerman’s account does not present Elaine as proof that the system works. Gonnerman is heavily critical of the criminal justice system and leaves readers with the sense that while Elaine has been more successful than many ex-cons, she is only barely scraping by at the end of the book.



Life on the Outside is the only book published by Jennifer Gonnerman to date. The book has been described by Margaret Flanagan of the American Library Association as a “powerful testament to tenacity [that] raises important questions about this nation’s inadequately funded and poorly designed reentry system for paroled inmates.”