MEREDITH VIEIRA, co-host:
But we're going to begin with
Lindsay Lohan
's first night in jail and just how many she may have left.
NBC
's
Lee Cowan
is outside the jail in
Lynwood
,
California
, with more.
Lee
, good morning to you.
LEE COWAN reporting:
Morning,
Meredith
. Now, the sheriff's department here is now saying that between the jail overcrowding situation here and then time off for good behavior,
Lindsay Lohan
may not even serve a full two weeks behind bars. She could do as little as
13 days
of that 90-day sentence. Then it's straight off to rehab again. This morning,
Lindsay Lohan
is just another inmate in a jumpsuit, all after the kind of circus you'd expect from one of her court appearances. Paparazzi on the ground, news choppers in the sky, even glitter thrown from the crowd. But inside court the big top came down and a somber, tired-looking
Lohan
sat speechless waiting to be taken into custody.
Offscreen Voice:
All cameras are ordered to be shut off.
COWAN:
And when the time came only a courtroom sketch artist was allowed to record the moment that
Lohan
was taken away.
Ms. SHAWN CHAPMAN HOLLEY (Lindsay Lohan's Attorney):
She's scared, as anyone would be, but she's resolute and she's doing it.
COWAN:
Lohan
was driven away in handcuffs to her new temporary home and booked like anyone else. No more jewelry, no more cell phones and no way to tweet.
Mr. STEVE WHITMORE (Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department):
Inside, it's business as usual.
COWAN:
Except for the fact
Lohan
isn't with the rest of the women in this 2200-bed facility. She's by herself, isolated in a 12-by-eight foot cell for at least the next two weeks. Is that time enough? Some former inmates say even a brief lockup can be a powerful tool.
Ms. WENDY FELDMAN (Prison and Criminal Justice Consultant):
If she uses it to continue to blame everybody else, it's a hurdle. If she uses it to flip the switch and move forward, it's a good thing. It's transformative.
COWAN:
No matter how long she serves it's only part of her sentence. She also faces a 90-day inpatient rehab. Addicts who have been there before say a
court order
is often the only path to recovery.
Dr. HOARD SAMUELS (The Hills Treatment Center):
One of the only reasons why I'm sober is because the courts committed me to either four years in
prison
or a year in rehab. As a result, I'm a convicted felon, but I spent a year in rehab and that helped me hit a bottom and now stay sober.
COWAN:
But hitting bottom is different for everyone, and no one knows just how deep she is except
Lindsay Lohan
.
Ms. HOLLEY:
She's stepped up, she's accepted responsibility, and that's really all I have to say.
COWAN:
Now,
Meredith
,
Lindsay Lohan
will go directly from jail into that 90 patient -- that 90-day inpatient rehab. The judge said she wanted a very quick transition there. So you figure if she does roughly two weeks here, then the
90 days
in rehab,
Lindsay Lohan
technically won't be a free woman until
sometime in the fall. Meredith:
All right,
Lee Cowan
,
thank you very much
.
Piper Kerman
knows what life is like behind bars. She served 13 months in a
federal prison
for drug-related charges and wrote about it in her book "
Orange
VIEIRA:
My Year
in a Woman'sPrison."
Piper
, good morning to you. Ms. PIPER
KERMAN
(Author, "Orange is the
New Black
:
My Year
in a Woman's
Prison
" [shown on screen]): Good morning,
Meredith
.
is the New Black:
It's actually 11 months in
prison
and two months in jail, and you really saw a difference between the two. You preferred
prison
.
VIEIRA:
There's a stark difference between a
federal prison
and a federal jail and between, I think,
prison
and any jail facility.
And I
think that's a little surprising for folks. A jail is in many ways much more restrictive and it's much harder to sort of get the patterns of life that help you do your time when you're in a jail facility as opposed to a
prison
.
Ms. KERMAN:
It's been what, 24 hours since
Lindsay Lohan
turned herself in. Her lawyer said at the time that she's scared. You have been through this yourself. Describe the experience for me. Is it a very scary thing?
VIEIRA:
She, at this point, has been through the very scary process of intake. Literally shedding your skin, you know, giving up your clothes, obviously your jewelry, any possessions you have, taking on that uniform, you know, that baggy, in her case, orange uniform, and becoming a prisoner. It is a transformation.
Ms. KERMAN:
Well, you know, she -- it's not the first time that she's been at
Lynwood
. She was there for about 84 minutes back in
2007
for her
DUI
. And that experience didn't really seem to phase her given what's happened since. As
Lee Cowan
just pointed out she may only end up there for two weeks, maybe three weeks because of
prison
overcrowding. So what kind of an impact can it really have?
VIEIRA:
I think that this will be a very different experience that her previous experience. I don't think that she was ever truly processed in or experienced life as an inmate. She's going to be in 23-hour lockdown, protective custody in the -- you know, the segregated housing unit, which is the shoe or the hole, which is not a good place to be. It's not a nice place to be.
Ms. KERMAN:
Why? Why not, because I think a lot of people would assume that that's a much safer place for her to be, that if she were out in -- within the general
prison
population that someone might figure, oh, it's
Lindsay Lohan
, let's take a shot at her.
VIEIRA:
Mm-hmm. It is a very secure place to be. She will certainly be safe. I have to say that my experience was not that the other prisoners were the worst part of
prison
. Quite the opposite.
And I
didn't like everyone I met in
prison
, but some of the women that I met and the things that I learned from them were some of the only things of value that you can really draw from the experience. I don't know that being locked in a room for 23 hours guarantees a change in
Lindsay
. That will really rest with
Lindsay
.
Ms. KERMAN:
Well, what would you advise her to do in the time that she's there?
VIEIRA:
Oh, I would advise her to read every single book she can get her hands on, everything they allow her to have. I would advise her to write letters to the people who mean the most to her and to the people who have really been a strength to her and who have helped her, and to really try to forge those bonds with folks outside, and to think long and hard about what her next steps are and what her plans are. That's certainly one of the things that I did.
Ms. KERMAN:
All right,
Piper Kerman
,
thank you so much
...
VIEIRA:
“ ”