Deborah Jiang-Stein

Deborah Jiang-Stein is the author of the memoir Prison Baby, which is about her coming to terms with her discovery, at the age of 12, that she was born to a heroin addict in prison. She is also a national speaker and founder of the unPrison Project, a nonprofit working to inspire and empower girls and women to prepare for a successful life after prison.

Women Behind Bars

As a young girl, Deborah Jiang-Stein discovered a shattering secret—she was born in prison and her birth mother, a heroin addict, kept her inside for the first year of her life. This book is the story of how Jiang-Stein came to terms with these traumatic facts and eventually began to dedicate herself to working with women in prisons. By enabling readers to hear the voices of the women she met, she hopes to “shed light on a universal truth: that if we look at someone long enough, we discover their humanity.”