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Martha Takes Up Cause
Of Former Cell Mates

By Philip Sherwell in Washington
The Telegraph - UK
3-6-5
 
In the ultimate makeover, Martha Stewart has emerged from jail not only $500 million richer and 20lb slimmer but with a surprising new persona ñ as an advocate for prisoners' rights.
 
Like another disgraced public figure before her, Jeffrey Archer, Stewart's spell in jail has coincided with a timely transformation into social campaigner as she tries to revamp her image from haughty ice queen to popular reformed felon.
 
Lord Archer, who served two years for perjury, sought to relaunch himself into public life by highlighting the scourge of drugs in jails and the futility of many prison work programmes.
 
As for Stewart, between picking dandelions from the prison grounds to spice up salads and learning to crochet, she tapped out stirring calls for sentencing reform on a manual typewriter and sent out letters on behalf of inmates to their families and lawyers.
 
Describing most of her fellow first-time offenders in Alderson, West Virginia, as "perfectly nice, neighbour-next-door" types, America's domestic diva criticised sentencing laws that led to mandatory long jail terms for minor crimes. There were too few rehabilitation programmes to help released felons re-enter civilian life, said Stewart, who herself returned to civilian life by private jet on her release on Friday.
 
"I am not an advocate of no punishment for serious crimes but I am an advocate of short sentences for first-time offenders," Stewart wrote to a Wall Street Journal reporter during her incarceration.
 
In an open letter on her website, she said: "I beseech you all to think about these women and to encourage the American people to ask for reforms. They would be much better served in a true rehabilitation centre than in prison, where there is no real help, no real programmes to rehabilitate, no way to be prepared for life `out there'."
 
Stewart went to jail for five months after lying about a share deal to federal investigators. She had built her business empire on persuading American women chasing the domestic dream to craft their lives around her tips on cooking, homemaking and gardening.
 
In jail, she became the adviser to a very different female constituency. Inmates confirmed that she became a popular figure, although her fame and perceived "soft" treatment angered some. Last week the billionaire queen of pastel shades and origami napkins was in ebullient mood as she began five months under house arrest at her $40 million (£21 million) estate in upstate New York. She fed her horses, checked the greenhouse and passed out coffee and doughnuts to the press pack.
 
Jail time has only boosted her profile and, with it, shares in her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, which have soared from less than $10 before the trial to $30. She owns just under 60 per cent of the stock.
 
Stewart can leave home for 48 hours each week while under house arrest and is intending to appear in two television shows for the NBC network. There has been speculation that the shows' British producer, Mark Burnett, will encourage her to distance herself from her prison stint as time passes, rather than remind the American public of her unfortunate brush with the law.
 
Campaigners for prison reform, however, hope that their unlikely champion will continue her crusade.
 
"We hope that she will follow through and become a real advocate for change," said Judy Freyermuth, the executive director of the Federal Prison Policy Project.
 
"She is in a position to make a difference. She can educate people and she can lobby people. The public will listen to Martha Stewart."
 
Mark Varca, a spokesman for FedCure, another prison advocacy organisation, said: "The reality is that this has made her the diva of federal criminal justice reform in the United States."
 
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk

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